New Life
by Ama no Tsuki
Summary: After her death, Konan finds herself stranded someplace mysterious. Fortunately, she is surrounded by familiar faces. Unfortunately, none of them have any memories of their previous lives. Why don't they remember? Why does she? Why are some of them even there? And what is happening to her and to them? Shipping & kitties included. Minor inspiration by William James.
1. Into the Darkness

**A/N: Hi. I hope you enjoy this, my first ever fanfic. It's not the first I ever thought of, but the first I ever tried to make an actual story out of and the first I've ever written down. This one came to me in a dream almost a year ago; the dream gave me the basic premise and the first pairing which will be referenced in this story. When I woke up, I a) wanted to bang my head against the wall for not having thought of shipping them before, b) wondered why I'd never used the Akatsuki in a mental fanfiction before, and c) was, and still am, totally convinced my subconscious has a writing crew and was working on this all along until it could send up a polished draft.**

**Let's lay some ground rules:**

**1\. Omakes - My policy is this - anyone may send in a request for an omake, at any time. The reason for this is that I have a lot of extra material I've thought of for the characters' backstories, but there is only so much that could reasonably come up in the main story. If anyone wants an omake to clarify a reference the characters may make, feel free to ask. There can only be one omake per chapter, so priority will be given to omakes of this type or, if I get more than one, whichever is most interesting for me. Other types of omakes, like if someone wants me to add some cute or funny scenes just for fun, will be considered after. I will not do any "cute kitty" omakes. The reason for this is that after a certain point, the entire story is planned to essentially become such an omake, so it would be redundant. **

**2\. Shipping - yes. Most of them will be between men, some will not work out EVER, and many will be overlapping because hehe, why not? Just to be well rounded (and a few other reasons), other sorts of LGBTA+ characters will be present. I hope nobody objects, and that it will be an educational and not too offensive experience. **

**3\. Writing style - If you like the quick trading of witty banter and characters doing all kinds of silly shenanigans, this story will not be for you for a long while yet. Odds are 50/50 it may contain shenanigans, but my writing style is dense and not moving very quickly, so expect description not banter. I've tried to be as even as I can and avoid writing entire paragraphs of absolutely nothing, or even entire sentences of absolutely nothing, and I would appreciate feedback telling me of any place where some has slipped by me. Feedback policy will be in the end author's notes. **

**I can't deprive myself of things to write in the end notes, so have fun and see you in a few minutes!**

**_Some time after Tobi's attack…_**

It happened slowly. Or instantaneously. Pick one – it doesn't really matter, since time was not relevant until much further into this process. It began with the drifting together of particles, assembling into a rough human shape. Eventually, thoughts returned. A sense of time developed. A short time later, it was complete, and Konan opened her eyes.

She wondered, quite naturally, if this was heaven. But when she sat up and looked around at the dilapidated buildings surrounding her small rectangle of grass, it didn't look very heavenly. In front of her stood overgrown houses, their windows reduced to nothing but shards in the pane (if there was a pane) and surrounded by piles of spent nesting material from rodents and birds. She had never seen houses in such condition; either they were war-blasted and destroyed, or still used for some purpose if not lived in. A building simply abandoned without any signs of a fight to explain why was not a familiar sight. It looked very sad, like something misused and empty.

She turned and looked behind her, and had to simply stop and stare. The building behind her was similarly overgrown and abandoned, but it was a completely different kind of building. It had huge windows, a massive area of pavement with faint lines painted on in front of it, and many old signs with just-readable numbers and seemingly nothing else on them posted in front of it. It resembled faintly the shops of the Rain Village with their large windows and signs announcing special sales and deals, but shops were shops. This was something huge and sprawling and more than large enough to be lived in by several families. What could be big enough to require this much space in order to sell it? She glanced around with quick, hardly noticeable jerks of her head. No matter what it was, the sheer fact that she didn't know and couldn't guess was a bad sign. Being uninformed in possibly hostile territory is never a good thing to be.

She tried to stand, and wobbled a bit with sudden disorientation. It felt as if she'd been lying there long enough for her legs to fall asleep and her heart to get used to inactivity – how long had she been lying there before waking up? That was unknowable. The blood came back to her head, and she stood up. She looked down and took stock of what she had: all of her clothing, intact and non-bloodstained, her ninja tool pack, the minor contents of her pockets. In short, everything she'd had upon death. That was good. She made some signs and paper briefly appeared and formed into wings. So she had her jutsu too. That was very good. There appeared to be no immediate danger, unless the diseases to be caught by urine-stained nesting material counted. The amount of broken glass made her very glad she wore such high boots, with decent soles. There was no telling who or what could be hiding among so many abandoned houses, but none of them had signs of battle and most had been very recently occupied by the sorts of animals that were the first to flee at human activity. In contrast to the openness and complete lack of defense provided by the large storefront, a maze of abandoned houses seemed much safer. She looked up at the pale blue sky with wisps of clouds floating in it. It looked almost mystical in how ordinary it was, how completely lifeless and uninspired. Rain clouds did not look much drearier. If this was heaven, it was at least as derelict as the buildings. She expected this wasn't heaven. If that was the case, how could she possibly have gotten here after death?

She paused in the middle of the road and looked up and down its entire length. There were trees to the north, and none to the south. It seemed to be all stores in that direction. She continued crossing to the east and considered moving a couple degrees to the south as she scouted. If there were people nearby, it would not do to be surprised by them. For now, it was mid-afternoon. She jumped onto the roof of a house and noted that there were a lot of them. She could spend the night in any one of them.

The next few hours passed quickly as she searched through the houses for any useful materials. None of them had food, but she did find a few that still dispensed water through their faucets. The smell and cloudiness made this discovery less than useful. Some may have been abandoned in a hurry; there were still sheets in the bedrooms. There was no reason to take them for now, but why on earth would they still be there? She filed that away as a mystery to potentially look into. Night fell, and as the lights from a vague southeasterly direction became and remained visible, she realized that there were people in that direction, and they did not go to sleep at a reasonable time. Her stomach growled, and she swooped down from the rooftops to head north. She had determined what resources there were in the abandoned houses and on herself. She had located the nearest people and decided they would be best scouted out in the daytime. The most pressing need right now was food, and the forest was the most likely source of that. It was all organized very logically, if a little bent from careful avoidance of the important questions. Alone…in an unknown place, and very likely an unknown world…without allies or familiar structures…What was she going to do? She very deliberately stepped on broken glass and ground her nails into her palms. Take care of the need for food now. Panic and search for her friends later. There was nothing else she knew how to do in this place.

She reached the edge of the forest in about 15 minutes running. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call it a woodland – this could not properly be called a forest. Most of the branches were not thick enough to comfortably stand on, and the highest ones that were stable enough to stand on were plainly visible from the ground, even with freshly growing leaves on them. Not one of the trees growing here could be more than 3 years old. Nonetheless, the fresh green growth should have attracted some manner of beast. She stepped quietly between piles of dry leaves on the ground, ears alert for anything moving. The howls of a pack of wolves were difficult to pinpoint, but not that far away, perhaps one kilometer. She made sure to move roughly parallel to them, hoping they would frighten something in her direction. A small furry thing crossed her vision a few trees away. She stepped mostly on patches of bare ground as she approached, kunai in hand. Aside from the kunai, everything about this hunt came easily, down to the ducking under branches of stunted trees. The woods just on the edge of the Rain Village had been a little like this… But that was a long time ago. She pounced on the fat, waddling rodent and put the blade through its skull. It squished a little, like poorly-ripened melon… She shook her head. What about a foreign world where destiny had not gone as planned could inspire thoughts of the past? Especially those parts of the past that were so unhelpful to any situation she had ever encountered. She gritted her teeth and tore at the beast's skin with more force than necessary, not noticing. Those parts of the past must not be brought up. They only led to pain.

After she was done thoroughly repressing the unpleasantness of the past, she finished skinning the rodent and made sure to wear her best flat face while cutting its flesh into strips. The wolves howled slightly less than a kilometer away. The presence of wolves in the middle of a forest and the lack of people in the surrounding area convinced her that it might be a good idea to build a fire. Both facts would normally indicate a lack of potential enemies, so it seemed safe to do so. She didn't know any fire-style jutsus, but the edge of a kunai and an appropriate rock worked just as well_. Stick to the details. It's safer that way. _It was hard to help, though, considering how she had died. She sat and stared into the flames as she considered the last few seconds of her former life. She'd failed. Nagato's body had most likely been desecrated within minutes, his valuable eyes stolen. What did Tobi/Madara intend to do with that power? The Uchiha clan seemed to have a talent for implanting eyes. It was likely he had simply stolen Nagato's power for himself. Even now he was probably marching on a wave of conquest, subverting the hopes of her comrades and herself, throwing the waves of destiny aside. She closed her eyes. She'd promised to uphold their dreams after Nagato's death. She'd promised to herself, to Naruto, to them in her heart, and even to Tobi that she would hold up their bridge to peace. Could Naruto go on to stop the path of war and point the way to peace? It would be best if he could, but she couldn't simply place all her hopes on him. Pinning all her hope on another was, in part, the reason why the darkness had appeared and seized her so quickly after Yahiko died. There were other reasons too, but not so easily preventable. The past would stay the past. No matter the future, she'd failed.

She opened her eyes and looked into the darkness. How many terrible things hid there! She could be fairly certain that she did not know them all. The thoughtless, reckless Konan she had met and even now feared was surely not the only form of darkness. She squinted into the gloom. It almost seem to swim before her eyes, as slick as it always was, taking on the forms of innumerable nightmares every second. One of them darted suddenly, and she remembered the laughter from back then. Her heart skipped a beat in fear. Anything might be possible in this abandoned, half-broken world. Could the contents of her heart have become real? _Help me…Hidan!_

She remembered to breathe just in time, as the wolves howled again, much further away. Then her chest froze again as an answering howl sounded, much closer to her. She looked down at the strips of meat over the fire, which looked done, and took them all away from the heat. It must have been the smell that lured this one here. She gripped her kunai at her side and stood up, cursing herself as she did so for being an idiot. Here she had sat, gripped in fear of the darkness itself, forgetting that it was the things inside the darkness that posed a tangible threat. Her eyes scanned the darkness, faster after she seemed to hear a distant sound. It was definitely a footstep, but somehow sounded too large to be a wolf's. She would have laughed if she didn't have years of practice wearing her flat face, but then remembered being convinced that her evil twin somehow had assumed separate form in the night. It would be hypocritical to laugh at herself for thinking of werewolves. Or would it only be hypocritical if she laughed at someone else for that? Her eyes narrowed at a distant shadow, visible only by a faint gleam that did not seem to be from moonlight. She waited as it moved closer. It was definitely human. Had someone snuck closer under the cover of the wolves? In that case, where was the wolf she had heard coming closer? Another mystery...

She waited as the shadow approached. Judging from the shape she could see, it appeared to be that of a grown man. The gleam was coming from his hair. Was white hair common in this world? Or could it be an enemy of hers? She mentally facepalmed at not having realized that there was no proof she was the only ninja trapped in this world. Well, if this was another shinobi, the one thing she could count on was some sort of discussion before anything, battle or otherwise, commenced. He seemed to be alone. This was a very good opportunity for information. And, if he was friendly, she could thank him for breaking her out of her thoughts.

As he approached the fire, close enough to make out some of his features, and ducked under a tree, she held the kunai out in a more visible position where it gleamed. He came out from under the branch, turned to face her, and immediately jumped back with a quick "Ah!" Then he turned slightly red and stammered to apologize. "Oh, jeez, s-sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. *sigh* I'm an idiot. It's the middle of the woods at night. There's no such thing as not scared. But anyway - I didn't come here to assault you or anything, I just smelled the meat and thought it smelled good, and wanted to know if you would share."

It took all of the years of practice she had at keeping a perfectly steady face not to let her mouth fall open while he was speaking. Firstly, he was dressed in a hooded sweater of a design she hadn't seen before, and otherwise perfectly normal pants made of a material that she hadn't seen before either. The way he dressed seemed entirely foreign in some way she couldn't pinpoint exactly. Secondly, the way he talked was very strange, maybe as if he were the world's most shy child. But even children didn't exactly talk like that. Thirdly, she actually did recognize him. The gleam was from his long white hair, tied back in a rough ponytail. His facial features were almost uncannily similar. It was hidden well, but he had a short blade at his side. There was no doubt about it. According to everything she'd heard or seen, this was Hatake Sakumo!

His tendency to willingly offer up insults against himself, though, almost had her laughing. She felt the urge to pinch herself just to make sure she wasn't having some fantasy dream. Here was a well-known shinobi, probably in possession of substantial knowledge, and he appeared to be willing to say 5 times more information than she desired without her even having to ask. She put the kunai away and smiled as she offered him one of the skewers, hoping that his status as a gold mine didn't show too much on her face.

"Oh, thank you." he said, and looked for a place to sit down. He found one and proceeded to tear the meat off its stick eagerly. "Tonight's catch didn't go so well, and I can't really stay out much later than this anyway. It's good to go to sleep with a full belly. I hope everyone else finds something, though. We're getting new pups soon. They'll need it."

"Pups?" she inquired, raising her eyebrows.

"Yep. It's spring, getting close to the start of denning season. You probably heard them, the pack? They're so excited! That's because the alpha female is already looking for a den site. Fingers crossed that all the pups will live this year." He ripped off the rest of the strip, swallowed it almost whole, and hesitantly gestured for another piece, which she was only too happy to give him.

Konan took another bite herself and waited purposefully another few seconds before asking, "So, you know that pack? How?"

Sakumo finished chewing another overly large piece of meat. He must have been very hungry. "I've known them since childhood. They're - well, they're my family. My cousins, mostly."

The obvious response to that was on her lips before she suppressed it at the last moment. No way, that was a silly idea. She wasn't 3 and scared of the dark. Not that she could remember ever having been scared of the dark, until just a few minutes ago. This same foolish idea had occurred to her a few minutes ago, too. Maybe it would be good to engage in his terms for now. "Are you a werewolf?"

He smiled as if sharing a joke and stated in a mocking way, "Nah, just a half-wolf, sorry." She silently stared at him and blinked slowly for an overly long stretch of time, until he realized he wasn't fooling anyone. "That's, uh, exactly what it sounds like. I'm partly wolf. My mother was one. I-I promise, it's not exactly as perverted or anything as it sounds. I'm perfectly normal anyway. Just a normal guy. Who happens to have a wolf family." His face was all flushed, and he couldn't seem to meet her eyes. "That is not any less weird than a werewolf, I know. I know. I don't know why I'm saying this much to be honest. Can I perhaps blame it on you being very charming?"

His obvious embarrassment and slight fear went straight past her defenses and woke up the laughing, reckless part of her that was on alert for such things, so she reached over without thinking and stroked his hair, like with a pet dog. He froze, but began to relax. "Nah, blame it on the moonlight. It's the same as admitting you're a lunatic, but nobody notices." She smiled and ran the edge of her boot along his leg, then pushed his head away dismissively. She forced the last of the skewers into his hands as she asked, "You must have other half-beast buddies of yours, right? I'm sure they're fascinating. Anything else special about your people?"

"Um..well...yeah, fascinating. Uh...we're really strong?" A blush of a different nature remained on his face now. She bared her teeth and thought triumphantly, _If I cut his face open right now it'd shoot geysers. Cut? No, no. No breaking things yet. I need to find more. _He squeezed his eyes shut and regained composure. "I mean...yeah, we're really strong. I have no idea how, I don't remember going through special training or anything, but I can punch through a tree somehow. Durable too - I mean, we're durable too, because my fist doesn't break from doing that. We've kinda formed a group in the forest to the east, and there are half-snakes and bears and tigers and other beasts. That was like a year and a half ago."

Suddenly he tensed and straightened. The blush disappeared, and a confused look came over his face. He suddenly looked very much like a man with something to say. She eagerly waved her foot back and forth and had to restrain a purr as he stopped and looked her dead in the eyes. "That's when the first of us started to get together, I mean. A year and a half ago. It just didn't make any sense to them anymore. I joined only a few months ago, because that's when it stopped making sense to me. Before that it made perfect sense, like of course people can have totally different species for parents, that's not strange at all, happens all the time. I just could not notice that was weird, as if something was keeping me from seeing it. I didn't even think about it. Nobody did. It was unreal."

He stopped to catch his breath, and her foot resumed waving back and forth. That wasn't all. He was on the edge of something. Just a little push… She leaned forward slightly, careful to narrow her too-wide eyes so not to scare him, and breathed, "So?"

His eyes met hers again, and the look of someone who's just woken up came across his face. His voice was very quiet as he asked the one question that, honestly, it was strange he hadn't asked at the start. "Who are you?"

_Yesss. Finally. Wolf-boy here's found some brains._ She smiled sweetly in the way she had as a little girl and flippantly replied, "Konan. I'm real, and if you help me I can find myself a much better idea of what's happened than you can. I just need to know one thing: so you, the one who is strange, know that something's off. Excellent. Does anyone else? I mean all the shopkeeps, the pedestrians, the people who aren't strange that live around you. Would they give me a second glance as I walked around in this costume?"

Sakumo blinked, and his entire body language became more confident now that she was forthright. She considered that if he was telling the truth, then he was not consciously aware of what he was or what he could do. He'd probably unconsciously detected that she had a hidden motive and had been off-kilter this whole time. He straightened and said, "No. That was what I meant earlier, when I said 'Nobody did.' I didn't find anything unusual before, and neither did anyone else, even though I obviously didn't hide anything. And everybody in town has kept on treating me as if nothing's wrong since I woke up. I can't be sure if that applies to you, though. Do you have a 'before'? It might be different for you if you don't."

Crazy, reckless Konan was beginning to edge back into her box, but she had one last note of caution to completely ignore before she did. "Eh, what are the odds of that? If they did recognize me as strange, and I demonstrated some of the things you've mentioned, either they would be forced to ignore both of us, be forced to recognize both of us, or develop a reality-breaking case of cognitive dissonance. I like my odds." She stood up and reached out a hand. He took it and stood up, and she hastily said (while reason reasserted itself, before embarrassment and uncertainty returned), "Thank you for telling me where to find you, and for your help. I suppose it's only fair to tell you whatever theories I come up with."

He shook her hand with a rueful grin and replied, "Just promise me you'll give me some warning before you milk me like a factory cow next time? Unless it's necessary."

"Did you say something about not staying up too late?"

His smile dropped almost as fast as his hand did, into his pockets from which he quickly pulled out a small rectangle. He touched it, and it started to glow. He turned it off and stuffed it back into his pockets, mumbling, "Yes, yes I did. Thank you. I've got things to do tomorrow and I need sleep, so glad you reminded me. Thank you." He held up a hand in farewell and said, "Good luck on your mystery solving," as he left. Then he disappeared into the darkness, and the forest was quiet again. Only then did Konan notice the fire was barely more than embers.

She looked around and closed her eyes, muttering a prayer of thanks to any god that might be listening (including Hidan's, if he really was paying attention to her) that this world had lower standards of acceptable behavior in a conversation. She thought of running her boot along Sakumo's leg and felt slightly nauseous. At least she'd kept her priorities in line this time. That thought consoled her somewhat as she kicked dirt over the embers until they were completely smothered. Alone in the dark, she looked up at the moon and its own softly shimmering embers.

"Good moves there. You're crafty. I particularly liked the whole 'slightly crazed, wondering if you should kill him now' part. You sure look in-ter-es-ting. Let's play sometime!" said a voice right behind her, just over her right shoulder. She of course spun around as soon as it started speaking, but there was nothing there as the voice finished its compliment(?). A giggle came down from high in the treetops where no human's weight could be supported, followed by a wooshing sound much further away. Then she was alone(?) again.

_What the hell was that?_ She looked all around her, knowing it was useless. Her pounding heart commanded her to check anyway. She sent up a silent prayer of thanks again for Sakumo and his wonderful, wonderful information. Clearly not much of what she knew was applicable to whatever place this was. She could only thank random gods that that situation would soon be remedied. As she turned and ran faster than was necessary back to her nest for the night, she pieced together in her mind the good news she had gotten so far. _I was right. Other shinobi who have died are somehow coming back to life in this world. But, according to him, all the others have memories of always having lived here. Why are mine intact? Lucky for me, those false memories can be easily distinguished. The time estimate he gave suggests that this phenomenon began a year and a half ago, at least, if I take the moment their existence became "real" as the moment they actually came back to life here. _She promptly tripped over a branch in her way and had to put out her hands to catch herself. Her heart skipped several beats as she lay frozen there, in the dark. _A year and a half...my gods...that's perfect. That covers everyone's deaths - Sasori's was only 8 months ago. If they're here, then I'm not alone. I can have the Akatsuki behind me! _She smiled as she got up and started running again. _Even Nagato! Not Yahiko, though...and since I haven't given up my memories and become part of this world, would they know me? Doubtful. I don't have a "before." _On she ran, to wait out the longest night of her lives.

**A/N: I have no idea what's up with the bedsheets. That detail just threw itself in there. Anywhos...**

**Feedback policy: If a helpful reader spots a typo or an overly large piece of text that has no purpose and wants to tell me about it, I would appreciate being told what story it's in, what chapter, and a quotation. Ideal format would be something like **

**"I noticed a useless sentence in The Boy in Red, chapter 2, where Misa says -insert quote here-."**

**That'd be very nice. Thank you. **

**My plan is to have beginning and ending author's notes on every chapter, no matter what. Even a chapter that ends in the middle of a sacred mood that is not to be interrupted will have a mood-appropriate note, although those are the only chapters I will refuse to put an omake on. The notes for which I have no prepared content will be my playground. **_**YES.**_

**Regarding updates, my plan is to update every week on a Sunday. If I have that declaration and at least one reader expressing a desire to see more of my story, my desire not to let other people down should kick in and provide reliable motivation. Hopefully. I'll try to use motivated days to write ahead, just in case. Motivation be a precious resource, me hearties.**


	2. Rocket fuel, Pathfinding and Kitties

**A/N: This chapter brought to you by Overthinking. I do it almost any time I am asked to think of something complicated. I still can't believe I actually managed to finish that project I had once where I was asked to plan a trip abroad, timing and all. Hopefully, this has not interfered in my story. But I wouldn't really be able to tell, would I?**

Something rustled in her room. That was what woke Konan up and set her heart beating like a decent competitor to a hummingbird's. The image of wavering darkness and the sound of wooshing remained in her eyes and ears for at least 2 seconds after she opened her eyes, sat up, and looked around all in one move. It was, of course, a pigeon. She stared at the bird, and it stared back. Eventually she moved her hand and it leisurely flew out a broken window. The sun was shining down through that window upon the floor in a large square. How long had it been up? She kept her mouth shut, but uttered a curse or two in her thoughts as she packed up all her things, tucked them into her ninja pack, carefully hid her ninja pack so it wasn't very obvious and wouldn't frighten them off, and went up on the roof.

It was going to take a lot of traveling today to arrange this. If all Akatsuki members were here, they would probably have the same amnesia Sakumo's group had. That meant she would have to somehow convince them that they had once been a group called the Akatsuki, that they could be again, and what exactly that meant. Sakumo had said that he found his strength and physical durability strange. If being able to not break bones on a single tree was strange, how would she convince any of them that they had what she had to admit sounded a lot like magical powers?

_What are my intentions? To summarize, they are 1. To gather the Akatsuki in a group again, 2. To inform them that they are not people of this world, but actually come from another, and 3. Enlist their help in figuring out how to get their memories back and find out what is happening. _She folded her hands in front of her and narrowed her eyes in concentration. _To do that, I will need to actually gather them together in one space, tell all of them at once what I need them to know, and hope they'll believe it. _She dug her nails into her forehead. _That is the plan of a complete idiot. Just randomly hope they'll believe me, a strange lady who probably looks foreign to them just like Sakumo looked foreign to me? After I tell them they can do magic? Well, I have my own jutsu, but if they're like Sakumo was that might confuse them more than it would convince them of anything. I'll need an ally, someone more convincing to them. But of course, they're the only allies I have. Fuck. Well...there's a possibility some of them might be easier to convince than others. Who among them is the least likely to be skeptical, the most likely to believe his own eyes over his ideas of what should be possible, the least invested in whatever sort of life he may already have? _She had to laugh. The answer to that was obvious. _I have found Hidan's ideal world, haven't I?_

Ah, but then there was the matter of finding a space to gather them in. Couldn't be too public, or self-consciousness and embarrassment would injure her efforts. How would she get them to go there? That would require convincing them she had something worthwhile to say while not mentioning what it was, a tricky idea. _It all comes down to trust, and they have no reason to trust me. _And there was the even trickier matter of finding them all. _As an organization, they did not get along very well. The odds they can all be found close to each other are just about nil. And what if they do get along? They might have come to the same realization Sakumo's group has, banded together in some form already, possibly with others. That could make it even harder for me, as they would have an established order backing someone else. _That was the moment she realized she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do.

The stage was set for a massive self-confidence crisis. _Don't panic. Think! You've been part of the Akatsuki's founding before. How did it happen? Well, I already was a member of a group, set up by someone else (Jiraiya-sensei). We acted as a group, protecting innocents, not seeking very much to attract new members. New members just came to us, attracted by Yahiko's boundless hope and his terrible speeches. We never asked membership of anyone. Yahiko just...had the gift. He had Jiraiya sensei's hope and he had the look in his eyes to share it. He could share that hope, and Nagato had the power that could believably make that hope possible. What did I have?_

_I...I looked nice. That one man who joined early on wanted to be with me. I had bandages. I motivated Yahiko and Nagato, pushed them to move forward because I needed to be protected. Even that...I failed at. It was my fault Yahiko died. When he died, the rest of us forgot what it was we hoped for. Nagato didn't have that hope in himself. Our path fell into darkness. We were the enemy. Naruto had Jiraiya sensei's hope like Yahiko did, and we were his enemy. That wouldn't have happened...if...if I hadn't been captured. Why did he give himself up to save me? Recruit a medical ninja. Lean on each other. I wasn't needed, but he was essential. Did he think we could live without him? That'd be just like Yahiko...he was amazing. Nagato was strong. What am I?_

_What am I? What am I, without them? _Her tears fell silently, darkening one of the red clouds on her cloak and dripping into her boot. _Where is my hope? Do I believe the world can be redeemed? Can I be redeemed? _She thought of a long time ago, sneaking through the small woods on the edge of the Rain Village for small creatures. She knew it was wrong, but the blood beating through her body, through her heart and all the way down to her guts, hummed with an energy that commanded her forward. A small mouse, gathering seeds for her babies too young to live without her. Repeated prodding with a needle revealed one spot on the back which elicited more squealing, more twisting and writhing from pain, than any other. Her heartbeat and breathing conspired against her - at the age of 6, she set down this mother mouse and watched until it thrashed so violently it broke its back and its flailing claws happened to catch the side of its neck. Had that feeling been fear? _Fear isn't generally located in the crotch. I was sorry. But not sorry enough to stop. What good is feeling sorry then?_

_The answer is no. I never believed it could ever go away. This poisonous beat that throbs beneath my skin, through my nerves - it is a beat of darkness, squeezing ever tighter, and it will not let go. I don't have the strength to throw it off. It will squeeze me dry, dirty me, break every limit I have. And then it will turn on those I hold nearest to my heart. Did I help Nagato lose his way? I sure as hell didn't stop it. That beat which is the will that pushes me forward, a will stronger than all the words I have taken into my conscience from those I learned from, it did not have the inclination to listen to Yahiko's words. My will...my will of pain…_

She opened her eyes and cupped her hand beneath her face. Soon, it was full of pearls. One of them caught the sunlight and sparkled. She tilted her hand to shade it. Still, that one drop sparkled, even as the others darkened. It dripped from the edge of her thumb, and became a little red sparkle on her cloak. So she crushed it with her palm. That spot of red still seemed brighter in the sunlight. It was determined to be eternal.

Suddenly, she recalled something she had once heard about eternity. It was as they were sealing one of the tailed beasts. Hidan was very annoyed that he and Kakuzu hadn't been the ones to capture it, when were they going to get a jinchuuriki to fight, why did it have to be money money money all the time (Kakuzu pointed out that his sacrifice ritual was good for killing, not capturing, and bounties were useful dead while jinchuurikis weren't, but it didn't even slow him down), when would he get to make the decisions for once about what missions to agree to, and on and on. Nagato (as Pain) finally had enough and snapped that the organization needed money to achieve its goals, that its goals were the purpose of his membership in the first place. Hidan had not agreed with that statement.

"The fuck would you know about purpose?!" he'd asked. "What are our goals, again? Oh, that's right, power. Last I heard, power was good for 2 things: getting what you want, and keeping it. The point of power is to make yourself happy. If you're not happy, your life is nothing but stinking trash swirling down someone else's gutter. If you're not happy, and you have no plans to be, that's what the real death penalty is. All these fucking people I hear, saying shit like 'Let's change the world!', 'Let's help others!', 'Let's collect a shit-ton of money for no good reason' (only the fact that they had to stand still for the sealing ritual restrained Kakuzu from leaping at him at that point), they're just fucking around. By the time they realize the only point of life is to have fun with it, they're screwed. People who want to walk a path lined with unicorns and candy canes are always unhappy. They get a few good times, and then they're back to screwing themselves over for things that are fucking impossible anyway. I hate that word 'Sorry'. I've never been sorry. I'll never be sorry. 'Sorry' means that you have no sense, because anyone with a sense of basic math can see that one moment is not equal to a billion other moments. One hour of 'sin' ain't equal to the years idiots spend feeling guilty and sad for it. If your life is forever ruined by one thing, then just kill yourself. If you don't want to kill yourself, don't be sorry! I don't plan to spend the rest of my immortality swatting myself upside the head for everything other people say I've done. Go fuck yourself if you want to make me! My _purpose_ here is to further my own happiness, no more. You can go shove your tiny 'purpose' up the ass of the real Purpose. I'll be here _smiling._"

Konan smiled at that memory. She had never heard Hidan be coherent when he was mad, and she never did again. Most of the time he just picked up his weapon and charged. And even then, it wasn't _that_ coherent. It was just enough for her to hear what he meant, and that was what mattered. "Screwing themselves over for things that are impossible anyway"...was that what she was doing? Punishing herself for something she couldn't remember ever having been without, and couldn't remove? Was that unfair? She shut her eyes and ran through his entire rant again, and let out a small gasp of surprise when she realized that word wasn't actually in there. It was what he'd been talking about, of course. Eternal punishment for a single moment was not fair.

But...weren't there some things that were simply unforgivable? She recalled Nagato at the end, realizing what he'd become, not wishing for redemption. But he had died right after. _The real death penalty._ His death had made it more noble, in a way. If Nagato had kept living, always sorry, it might have been something like a different, much sadder death. What did her will have the inclination towards? Why, that was what all wills have an inclination towards. _I want to live. _She clenched her fist. _I want to live. Yahiko's last words were to take care of me. I can't rely on Nagato or anyone else to do that for me forever, and if I let myself be condemned forever, that'll be one last failure. Perhaps there are other things that are unforgivable, but that would be the most unforgivable of them all. For him more than anybody else, I ought to live. If that's wrong, I'll remember. But it would be worse to be sorry. _

She looked up and surveyed the landscape, the tears drying on her face. _There's one thing I have. It's never been in agreement with me, so I usually don't count it, but nonetheless it's there. For better or for worse, there is this impenetrable will inside me, which nobody can stop or turn. _She clutched her stomach. _I can make the Akatsuki again. I will make it again. I know, because I can feel it. This is what I am! I am in alignment with myself!_

Having settled that, Konan decided that, until she got everyone together and could hope for Hidan's support - _but of course who knows how helpful he'll be, if they know him enough to trust him they probably know he's slightly nuts - _and even if she didn't get said support, she still wouldn't be alone. She would be her own ally. _That's a riskier gamble than betting on Hidan. At least he's sane. A very desperate gamble. But, I am desperate._ So, she turned inward and asked herself what to do with all this uncertainty. _**Wing it. It'll be fine, whatever happens. What are you worrying so much about? **_Ah, yes, the old "who cares" line of reasoning. So, stick to the plan she'd originally come up with, if things didn't work out find another direction to pursue, all would be well. _I'm starting to sound less than completely there myself...but I promised._

Step 1: Find a place to gather them all together for her pitch. An abandoned house would make a terrible place for them to believe her. The site should be somewhere not so remote, larger, better maintained than these glorified rat nests, yet not somewhere they would feel the influence of societal expectations of reason. In other words, a larger building closer to the town that was also abandoned but not for as long. A feeling of warmth seemed to unfold in her chest at these thoughts. Each glowing petal of it unfolded out to its full length, then continued. Further it grew, pouring through her muscles. She looked down to see she was not, in fact, floating. Yet the new strength convinced her she could. _I don't have anybody, but I'm doing this anyway, and I think it's going to work. If this is what not being entirely there results in, I want more. _The warm blaze sent her eyes in a southeasterly direction. Time to begin.

She got to her feet, wiped away any tear tracks that might still be on her face, and flew from roof to roof in that direction. Not literally, that would have been a waste of chakra, but metaphorically. Time seemed to stand still until she saw the abandoned houses thin out into empty roadside. The road was heading straight east, and she judged her position to be far enough south that she should be able to enter the town from the west if she continued on this path. She glanced for a brief moment at the road itself, though, because it was a very strange one. It had colored lines running along its length, yellow in the center and white on each edge. It was smooth black rock as well, not a dirt path, but that made sense because a dirt path could not be painted on. The direction of causality might flow in the other direction (it had been paved first, then someone realized that made it good for painting), but that was highly unlikely. Paved roads in the city made sense, but this was not in a city.

Why would anyone go to such expense to pave a traveling path? As far as she knew, traveling paths between settlements were mostly used by people on foot and the occasional carriage. Wait a sec! She looked at the lines again. The space between them appeared to be perhaps half a meter more than the width of a carriage, and there were two such spaces. _Is it meant for carriages traveling to and from the town?_ Looking at the white lines marking the edge of the road, an image appeared in her head of similar lines, painted on pavement as faded and cracked as they were in front of a giant storefront. _Was that a store for carriages? How wealthy is this world? _It made sense they would have dedicated paths then, but why with lines on them, and why paved? Wheels did need a smoother surface than feet, but not this smooth, and the edges of the road were clearly marked with grass. Maybe if they were moving very fast, small obstacles would disrupt them more and it would be harder to see. Her legs moved before that thought was completely finished, propelling her away from the road and onto the grass. _How fast would that have to be? Fast enough it may be difficult to sense them coming. It's not safe to be a walking traveler here. Fast moving carriages owned by enough people that there are entire stores to sell them in? What is this world? Why didn't I ask Sakumo about any of this? What could be used to accelerate such large, unwieldy things to such speeds? Is there similar acceleration in common use for weapons? Hope to god that most people are peaceable… _

This entire train of thought had taken about a minute and a half to run through, and as Konan waited for her heart to slow, she concentrated until she could feel hope and warmth run through her body again. Just a shadow of before, but still there. Even so, chills ran up and down her spine. Here was her first true, concrete proof that this world was only marginally like her own. Sakumo's assurances that she might not stand out seemed absurd. And if her friends had integrated into this world like Sakumo, how different would they be? _They may not really be the Akatsuki anymore. If I'm lucky, they might still be a shadow of themselves, like this world is a shadow of mine. But so, so different! _

A rushing sound like nothing she'd ever heard before filled her ears. It sounded similar to wind rushing along a desolate, rocky valley floor, but not quite. It was too purposeful and directed. It sounded like something approaching at high speed! She got to her feet, prepared for evasive maneuvers, but then something appeared over the nearest hill on the road and rushed past on entirely separate business. She didn't bother holding her jaw closed as it grew smaller and disappeared. If that was a carriage, she was a macaque. Perhaps a distant cousin, but certainly no near relation! It was larger, it was metal, it was shining, its wheels were small yet powerful looking and sturdy...An unusual feeling came over her at the sight of this. It felt like respect, only larger.

When Konan thought of the way her life had always been, it seemed distant. The road of the ninja was a twisting one, full of suffering and pain. It required no small determination to go down, and unthinkable personal strength to overcome its many obstacles, just like climbing over a mountain. She looked at this new road. Rock-hard, set in stone, unwavering. Control was in higher demand here than fortitude, and creativity in place of strength. She looked after the metal carriage again. What this road promised was unending power, but slippery power too. She felt something shift inside, and saw in her mind the metal carriage sliding on its wheels, lurching into the air and slamming down again, perhaps turning over. She grasped her stomach, gasping. _Do I have that control? I'd better. This isn't a dirt path anymore. _She stepped onto the road again, noting that it seemed right this time, and continued east with her ears on alert for other travelers.

After a few more kilometers, the road branched. Konan was standing on one of the branches, and the other took almost a 90-degree turn to her left. So, turn north to see what was up there, or continue east to enter town? _Step 1: Find a place to get them together outside of town, Step 2: Find them, most likely in town. Follow the priorities._ She turned left.

After some time buildings appeared on either side of her as she ran. They were houses. They certainly were larger and better maintained than the shacks she'd spent the night in, but they seemed too well maintained. She didn't see anybody, but a child's toy lay near the side of the road with not a scratch on it, nor a hint of rust. She darted her eyes around - curtains in all the windows. Good. She darted between two houses on her right, smiled at the providence that had not placed anyone in their backyards at this precise moment, and entered the edges of the forest again. If this was the worst inconvenience she found in this world, she'd be very lucky.

As she continued running, she wondered why it seemed that nobody was there. Even in the Rain Village, where people didn't spend a lot of time outside because of the weather, there was always someone returning home, leaving home, etc. And why did it seem as if nobody was home? She didn't see any mothers or children. Was there some mass abandonment of homes going on? But they still looked as if people lived there. The way people lived seemed to make little sense; Konan filed that under her rapidly growing 'Mysteries to be Solved Later' folder, right next to the lack of shops or other public spaces within reasonable distance of where people lived.

She also wondered about the features of their homes. Most of them had large white doors in front. Or, at least, doors were the only things it made sense for them to be. The other differences, such as lack of usable porches, she attributed to general difference in culture between worlds. But the huge doors, she could not figure out. That would have to wait until she reached the end of the neighborhood, where she heard yelling coming from inside a house that was not as well taken care of as the others. It seemed to be a woman yelling. A man replied angrily, and the front door made a slamming noise as he threw it back against the house while he left. Konan had crept closer to the corner of the house she was now peering around, and she watched silently with her eyes narrowed as the man used a side door to enter the space behind the large white door. It had no visible rust, but the straining sound as it opened suggested this part of the house received no better treatment than the overgrown lawn. Her heartbeat quickened as it struggled upward, and her mouth opened slightly as 2 round black shapes first became visible, and then the rest came into view.

_People keep those monsters inside? How could they? Keep that beauty hidden in the dark?_ As the man got inside, turned it on (_a mechanical carriage?_) and propelled it out onto the paved path leading from the house, she got her first good look at a powerful metal steed that wasn't moving too fast to clearly see. _Woah. _The bottom of it was already a victim of rust that seemed to be creeping upward from somewhere below, and its wheels flattened slightly under its own weight, but that in no way detracted from its design, which gave her the same eerie feeling of speed and slipperiness as seeing the first one racing along had done. _Those curves...Wait, flattened?! _

Her astonishment grew as she noticed that yes, the wheels were changing shape as the man got out and reached for his bags. _The average civilian here rides inside a metal, mechanical rhinoceros supported by _air?_? _She forced herself to edge back behind the corner, slow her breathing, and pay attention to her inner thoughts. Her inner thoughts were loud enough she failed to notice the beginnings of discomfort in her eyes caused by excessive dilation. _**Want. Want. Explode? Want! **_Something else grew as, even while she was trying to reason that she wasn't ready for that speed yet, she heard the man let out a sharp cry of pain and begin cursing. In less than ½ of a second she looked again and saw that he'd accidentally hit his hand on the rusty corner of its hatch (_Or would that also be called a door? This world's definition of door is too damn big) _and cut himself. She'd only heard one other man capable of such rapid-fire, repetitive cursing in her life, and the thought of him did nothing whatsoever to shrink her pupils down to normal or stop the low purr that started in her throat. After he grabbed some tissues out of his vehicle and wiped his hand on them, he threw the bags in and eased it down the path and onto the road. She disappeared around the house as he faded into the distance, but resumed purring a second later. Actually, this round was inspired by the thought of her hand running down longish white hair, like she'd run her hands along a cat's, and the deeper purring/low growling that might elicit.

But on to other business. Konan pressed her thumbnail into her palm, blinked hard, and returned to the corner of the house. There were no more houses beyond his - the road seemed to fork at that point. She promised to get herself one of those machines as soon as possible, reason be damned, and went to check out the fork. One side curved back east, toward the town. The other went away from town, in the opposite direction. There were no priorities to follow this time, as neither path clearly indicated that it led into town. But, she recalled that one of the characteristics of her ideal place was that it should be abandoned, and she saw that the yellow lines on the road leading away from town were patchy, cracked, and the road itself had holes in it. Not gigantic holes, clearly it had been maintained sometime within reason, but certainly not as often as it needed. _Abandoned, but not too abandoned. _She promised not to waste any of this gift of good fortune and quickly set off down the yellow-patched road. Despite her earlier anxiety, fortune was swinging her way. Not for the first time, Konan wondered what, exactly, her inner will was and why Hidan was always telling her about Jashin-sama as if he was extremely relevant to her life. _He can give me a necklace himself if he wants. I'm just going to see where this new road leads. Onward! _The sun warmed her hair and dappled the flower in it as she ran.

**A/N: Reviews for this chapter would be very useful. See, I have this weird problem where I generally don't respond well to emotional content unless I've been in a receptive frame of mind for some time. So, watching a movie and having all the lead-up before some character dies? I can feel that. Just hearing about it, no lead up? No reaction, even if I know the character well and everyone else is devastated. Being in the process of writing emotional content is exactly the lead up I need, so I actually cried while I was writing the first half of this chapter. But now that I look back and just read it, I can't help but think "This is so ineffective, how could anyone care about this, it doesn't work as an emotional scene." I have no idea what readers' responses would be reading for the first time, so I just wung it and hoped your responses would be closer to mine while writing than mine while reading. If it worked, let me know so I don't feel the need to try for extensive rewrites of stuff I got a reaction from the first time. **


	3. Hidden Help

**A/N: The difference in subjective quality I mentioned last chapter may have something to do with the length dilation I've been noticing. Every scene feels so much longer while I'm writing it than it turns out to really be. As a result, the first 2 chapters currently seem pathetically short. Until I'm done introducing all the Akatsuki members, I plan to keep the chapters to 1, more likely it'll turn out to be 2 intros per chapter to get a more reasonable length, and after the introductions are done I'll hopefully have many more scenes that can put together in one block so each chapter has some actual substance to it. Enjoy the longest chapter I have so far, at barely over 5000 words.**

In contrast to the 5 minutes or less it had taken to reach the houses, Konan figured she had to have been running for at least 10 minutes by the time the shape of a large building came into distant view. But of course, as a trained ninja, 10 minutes of running barely counted as a warm up, so she eagerly picked up the pace upon seeing it.

When she reached the building, she reflexively suppressed a smile, although there seemed to be no reason to do so. It was large - check. Through its doors, she could see a large room where one would welcome guests - check. It was clearly abandoned - check. But it was still in good condition, with even its pale outsides not much tarnished - check. She examined the large paved area in front of it. The white lines were more obvious, since it hadn't been left for as long as the large store, but the pavement was in an unpleasant condition and everything was quite exposed. Konan, as a ninja, did not like the last one, but of course she realized that may not matter to the others. It didn't matter anyway, because she was standing near a part of the grass surrounding the building which was flat and almost even to the road. There was no reason those things couldn't move over such flattened grass, and she investigated the side of the building to determine that yes, there was a path leading to a flat area of dirt next to the building. The entire back and some of the sides were surrounded by the forest which was pressed up against this building, so that area was decently hidden.

Just to make triply sure, she raced to the front and opened the door, stepped inside. The welcoming area seemed uncomfortable in some way she couldn't identify (it may have had to do with the crack in one wall), so she moved into the rest of it. The ground floor had several large rooms, but only one caught her attention as she passed. As with the welcoming room, she couldn't be sure why. It had a long counter to her left with shelves above, and the right had some short cabinets. In between, the floor was tiled with some sort of decorative pattern in white. The lights on the ceiling were not extremely harsh, but seemed to have dulled over its time. She retroactively realized that the building also had electricity. There was another entryway on the other side from where she entered, and that one did not have a door. The entry she stood in did have a door, but it was propped open. Perhaps that was why it felt comfortable. This room was not an easy trap, nor too exposed. At last, she was sure.

_If there was any reason someone would want to convince me there was a god, they just succeeded. I have no idea why, but something inside tells me this is not 'too good to be true'. It's just too good to be coincidental. It could be luck, but… _A flicker of a thought went through her mind. It asked, "Why are you believing in these things?" The flicker tried to conjure up fear at her sudden inability to stick to reason, at the idea that there could be something influencing her, etc. That was its downfall. Said flicker was almost instantly crushed by the signal of faith that was telling her these things, and as a result Konan would never realize her inner transformation until it was too late. The groundwork had been laid over the past few years; this was merely the catalyst.

She left the room and continued searching, this time for a writing implement. Eventually she found her way to a room that had a desk in it, and as she looked through its drawers she found a strange blue tube-shaped thing with a tapered point. It looked similar to some writing implements of her world, but of an odd design. She created a single sheet of paper with her jutsu and tried it, finding that it did dispense ink somehow. Remembering some numbers she had seen on a post near the front entrance and a faded sign that seemed to mark the road it was on, she returned outside and wrote them down. She had directions to give to her companions, presumably they would have those vehicles to get here, there was a decent sized room to speak to them in… Konan decided to stop thinking about how perfectly everything was lining up for her to get the Akatsuki back together. It was taking too much time. She turned and retraced her steps, making her way back to the original fork in the road by midday.

Once there, Konan paused for a moment to consider her next moves. There were some considerations to be made before just blindly charging in. She looked both ways, crossed the road, and settled in a hollow under a tree on the opposite side. The shade was pleasant and helped to cool off her cloak, which had soaked up the sun and was now radiating heat onto her, but she did not start to relax. She looked up into the blue spots peeking through the leaves above, and considered her approach. Perhaps they wouldn't be as wary as she had been when she was approached by a stranger, but expecting them to be comfortable would be like expecting them to be retarded. She would have to come up with something to say and a way of holding herself that would put them at ease, make them more receptive to her proposal. She knitted her fingers together and rested her head on her knuckles, pondering. A few lines she thought of and considered, but ultimately discarded, and Konan had no idea what passed for harmless and not up to any trickery in this world. She did narrow down her list of details to include to the bare essentials - any more would be too outlandish - but aside from that she concluded that speaking and acting natural, not scripted, was likely to work the best.

The next consideration was how to find them. That was a complete unknown, since she had no idea where any of them were. She figured that the best she could do there was some variation of hoping she got lucky again and was able to reach all of them. But how to get them all in that building together to hear her? Should she ask them to come at a specific time? _No. That's demanding a little too much, to ask them to make plans just because I want them to. It may be easier for them to be spontaneous, to decide to listen to me on a whim rather than on a decision. Decisions take reason, and there is no reason to listen to someone who really doesn't belong here. _

This train of thought suddenly reached a switching point, and a possibility occurred to her that she really should have thought of earlier. _Why am I here? It felt at first like waking up from deep unconsciousness, which is to say, perfectly natural. But being reanimated in another world is not perfectly natural. Is there any chance I was brought here for a reason? _That would certainly explain her unrealized growing conviction that she was not alone, not unseen, perhaps not unpossessed. _I do feel somewhat like a puppet. But I did agree to this - _even if it was under distress - _and it feels good. I suppose if someone has done something to me, and I am here for a specific reason, I forfeited my right to complain a long time ago. _The spots of deep azure appeared to dance before her, even though she knew it had to be the green sprouting leaves that were moving. Konan blinked, and the illusion disappeared. _Why is today so much more beautiful than yesterday? _She shook her head, stood up, and turned, ready to walk into town. _How can I have lived my whole life in a state of uncertainty, never knowing, having to make my own answers, and yet not encounter such sprouting fields of questions before today? _Maybe it was a consequence of being alone. That thought induced her to start running into town. Sprouting fields of questions were not fully good things, and she was starting to get tired of them.

Once the sparse trees gave way to functional buildings, with other people in and around them and everything, Konan found herself doing something she had never even contemplated doing: wonder-gazing. Similar to tourist gazing, only she was genuinely interested in learning about what she was looking at. Of course, for the first few streets she remembered that her plan hinged, at least partially, on going unnoticed, and so she made an effort to walk as if she belonged there and all was normal while discreetly observing the civilians she passed. A young woman peered at her closely as she passed, and Konan quickly found a post behind a corner to watch this woman from, but upon doing so she saw the young lady peering in a small mirror at her own makeup and looking dissatisfied. So, someone of this world had been looking closely at her appearance, which was the only thing that stood out to the casual eye, and saw nothing except a reason to be jealous. Konan considered the matter and came to the conclusion that someone primarily interested in appearance should be the first to notice of anyone, so she took that as a sign that she would go unnoticed as hoped. Not of course that there had been serious doubt of that.

Once that was resolved, she had her attention available to focus on other things. And that's how a good few hours disappeared from the day, torn out of the normal 24-hour cycle by some mysterious portal because it was _impossible _that she, a shinobi well practised at paying attention to her surroundings, could have possibly spent that long looking at...ah...how many things? It was hard to remember. So instead she attempted to count the things she had learned, after finding a place underneath a tree in the park close to the center of town. Konan adopted her thinking posture, with her head on her knuckles again, and tried to summarize. She'd learned the relative location of the park, for one. So she had to have made her way around town, learned its approximate borders. But surely that couldn't have taken a few hours of time, unless she'd also spent significant time learning the rules for crossing streets in specific places, watching the "gassing up" of those behemoths called "cars", and learning of the existence of celebrities, corporations, brands, mass production of bicycles, video games, psychotherapy, ents, disposable forks, swiss army knives, schizophrenia, baseball caps, polyamory, robots, fudgsicles, something called "Wikipedia", tan lines, other languages, other continents, 80s hairstyles, the Harlem Renaissance, jaywalking, Arson, Murder and Jaywalking (the concept, not that exact name), Methodists...her eyes snapped open, and she wished for a calendar to check to make sure she hadn't accidentally spent _27_ hours instead of a measly 3 simply immersed in this world. Was this normal here, or was she in need of some of that psychotherapy?

The sky above indicated that it was mid-afternoon, so she invested a not-small amount of effort to pushing all this new information out of her head to make space for her thoughts. Priority one: find the other Akatsuki members. Or at least, the strangers that looked like them. Nothing in the past few hours contradicted her previous thoughts that she should look somewhere people usually get together, such as a bar, so she didn't have to do much thinking to decide what to do. The only problem was that she didn't exactly remember where a bar was. She'd seen one at some point, but she didn't remember its exact address. She thought it might have been near the car crash site, but couldn't be completely sure, and the vehicles had probably been moved by now. She sighed and stood up, deciding that she'd probably find it the same way she'd found it the first time. Not to mention, if any of _that_ had been true there might still be a residual connection leading her to him. Konan forgot to consider the possibility of finding anyone else first.

She wandered pretty much aimlessly, looking for any indication that someone was going to or coming from the bar. One street north, then 2 streets east, then west one, north 3, east one, south 5, east 2, south 2 and west one. She paused to consider how useless going in a circle probably was, when a sound caught her attention. It was a small sound, of someone moving quietly. That was precisely why it attracted her attention. She turned around in a hurry, only for something to move on the other side of her at the same time, between her and the wall. It was also the sound of something moving quickly - the only reason she hadn't instinctively leapt onto the nearest roof was because her ears had somehow put together a picture of something small from the noises. Not that small couldn't mean dangerous. She spun around even faster, following the unknown being's path, and caught a glimpse of something black flowing around the corner at about mid-thigh height. Less than a blink, and it was gone. Anyone else would have wondered if they had imagined something, but that thought didn't even occur to the reasonably paranoid kunoichi. She followed it to the next intersection and spun around the corner to face north in the space of one and a third seconds. What she found there was-

Nothing. No small animals or children with long black hair, nothing else that could have created that impression, nothing. Her eyes instantly traveled up the street to the next intersection, attempting to calculate exactly how fast it could have been moving. She'd traveled almost a complete street west to this intersection, had been only a few running steps away. Something running with excellent turning ability could've made it in the time it took her to finish a complete rotation. But there was nothing up the street either.

Nothing, that is, except the exact bar she had remembered. Konan, not one to use "coincidence" as a first explanation, immediately wondered if this was accident or intention. She remembered the voice in the dark from last night. That voice had been within striking distance, but had not harmed her. It had called her interesting, and expressed approval of what she was doing and how she was going about it. It also blended into the dark so well she could not see a thing while looking directly at its source. If what she was doing was so entertaining, it wasn't a stretch to wonder if she'd just received a very creepy form of assistance meant to nudge the action along.

The streets were quiet, nothing out of the ordinary. Konan checked again anyway, then tentatively accepted this explanation and relaxed somewhat. She prepared herself and began to walk up the street to the bar. After a few steps she stopped. She'd overlooked something. She looked to her right at a metal garbage can sitting on the sidewalk with a lid on. It was wide enough for her to stand in, and waist high. She remembered a clinking sound as she turned the corner. She lightly tapped on the lid, and the sound it made didn't seem quite right, as if the vibrations were being absorbed by something. If it really was that voice, somehow it had known what she was thinking last night. It would not do to antagonize such a powerful potential ally. If it was not, then it would also not do to antagonize someone who just wanted to be helpful. She rested her fingers on the lid and said softly, "Thank you," then turned and continued on her way.

She was wrong. As her form grew smaller and more distant, the lid of the garbage can clinked again as it tilted, and lifted up very slightly. A small pair of eyes watched her go. The voiceless one, with pale skin and long black hair, wondered with his golden eyes if she would be his friend. And he was disappointed that she hadn't looked.

.

A ninja, a soldier and a criminal walked into a bar. Unlike the others, the ninja was _not _here to have herself a good time. Konan wrinkled her nose at the scents of alcoholic beverages she'd never tasted nor heard of. The smell of alcohol was fine. The smell of whatever else was in those drinks was not. Add to that the smell of someone violating the bar's "No Smoking" sign, which was clearly posted, and she had to repress the urge to scratch her head as she wondered why a place like this would be so crowded and full of people seemingly enjoying themselves. The music wasn't even all that good, and if the food was it shouldn't matter since she didn't see anyone eating. If such an atmosphere was good for anything, it was feeling alone and isolated in a crowd. She felt like that now, as the sounds faded into a background blur, a bubble keeping any one voice from reaching her. For such a public place, she was surprised to find it felt so secretive.

Her eyes drifted over the crowd, looking for something distinctive and not finding it. The sights blurred into an indistinct background of people too, and she had to shake her head and take several deliberate steps away from the entrance before resuming her search. Only then did she realize as the pressure lifted that a stranger had been standing right against her arm the whole time. This was not a place for someone with sharply trained senses to be. She shuddered as the ceaseless sensory input overwhelmed her, and prayed that what she was looking for was here.

Konan stopped looking around at all of this and allowed herself to be swept numbly into the bar as more people came in the door. When she no longer felt uncomfortably close to another person, she looked up and realized this bar had a seating area with actual tables and chairs. Several of those tables were occupied, but one was occupied more interestingly than the others. She allowed a smile to reach her face, and strode confidently over.

**Hidan**

_What a headache. There are so many people, my brain feels full. If he would just stop fucking shuffling and finish his fucking drink - __**Woah. **_

Hidan's eyes widened as he absorbed the strong-looking lady walking up to him. She was wearing the most kickass cloak he'd ever seen. _I've gotta get me one of those. _She had blue hair. _Like Shark-boy. Wonder if she knows him? _Her eyes appeared to glow, and he felt a very, very determined and dangerous feeling wash over him.

He promptly reached over and grabbed his friend's wrist, spilling cards on the table as Kakuzu had been right in the middle of a shuffle. But of course that wasn't even worth noticing in these circumstances. Before Kakuzu could get a sound out, Hidan whispered urgently "Drop-dead gorgeous lady approaching. Try not to be a fuck-up this time," all without taking his eyes off her as she stopped at their table and comfortably pulled out a seat like she had every right in the world to be there with them.

She sat down and looked right into his eyes. Hidan got a feeling of familiarity from her gaze, and he realized that the way she looked into his face so gladly was like she knew him. He didn't recall ever meeting her, but if a lady knows you a lady knows you. She could be some sort of goddess or something, you never know. He could easily imagine her being some kind of goddess. Maybe a goddess of pain or battle or blood, something like that. The feeling around her, like she did have certain connections, did not discourage his thoughts on this matter. In the space of a second, he knew 3 things for sure. One, she was here for a reason. Two, she wanted him for whatever she was doing. Three, _he would absolutely do anything she asked._

Her eyes moved from him to Kakuzu, who had stopped his grumbling as soon as Hidan spoke and was now watching her in a very (from Hidan's point of view) unfriendly way. Of course, it was just suspicion at an oddly dressed woman stopping at their table in a way that violated social convention. He didn't remember her either - she was a stranger. And yet this blue-haired lady had seen fit to claim a spot at their table like an old friend. Or maybe a girlfriend. Kakuzu's eyes traveled over to Hidan, both to avoid her oddly intense gaze and because Hidan was still holding his wrist. He seemed to have forgotten entirely and was completely still while watching her every move with glazed-over eyes and a smile like she _was _someone they knew. Kakuzu returned his attention to the stranger. The look in her eyes was not comfortable, but he trusted Hidan's reactions by now, and agreed that she did seem more relevant than your average bar floozy. His fingers fumbled as he pried Hidan's from around his wrist, and Kakuzu found himself hoping despite his size and strength that she would look back at his half-naked companion so he could take back his usual role of watching silently while Hidan handled the weirdos. Not that she seemed _merely _weird.

The woman smiled out of the blue and looked down for a moment. Then she looked back at Hidan, who correctly interpreted her smile as amusement and realized how she must have looked to Kakuzu. _**Holy crap. **__I've never felt Kakuzu be intimidated like this. She's…oh fuck, I forgot words. Why do I feel like I do know her somehow? There's something in her, no, around her, fuck, with her, no that's not it, __**something **__that I definitely know. _He reflected her smile back, and there was a moment like they were sharing a private joke. Considering that Kakuzu had no idea what was happening and was glad not to, they were.

She blinked deliberately, and Hidan almost hallucinated a _thunk _sound as whatever had just been happening ended and Business Mode began. She looked between the two of them very quickly and said, mostly to Hidan, "I have a proposal for the two of you."

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes, but Hidan's widened and he spoke almost involuntarily, "What proposal?"

The woman smiled slightly (a polite smile to get a friendly atmosphere going, not a real one, Hidan noticed) and continued. "My name is Konan. I have something I am trying to find out more about, and I need your help to do so. Actually, I need several other people's help in addition to yours. If you go to this location" - she pulled out a piece of paper with something written on it - "I believe I have found a suitable place to gather up everybody and tell you all what it is I want help with." She held out the piece of paper, and Hidan immediately memorized the address written there.

Kakuzu decided to break from his usual role and said, "I'll need more information before I trust your word on this." He'd seen the paper too, and recognized the address as being pretty far out of town and abandoned. After the effect her gaze had had on him earlier, he wasn't so sure that she would be unable to do anything to them, even if she was telling the truth about needing other people there as well.

Konan didn't have any arguments against that. She looked at Hidan, and experienced a small twinge of relief at his glaring at Kakuzu. Kakuzu looked back, and Hidan just huffed and said, "I'll be there. Any time?"

"No. I'm not sure how long I'll need to gather everyone else."

Although she hadn't offered any clarification beyond "several others," Hidan thought of Shark-boy for the second time this encounter. "Well, if you go outside, turn left and walk two blocks, then turn left again there's an aquarium where a guy I know should be getting off work soon. And if you don't turn left, but keep going for another block, there's a gas station with another guy I know."

Konan smiled slightly, but Hidan could feel her practically flowering, that was such good news. As usual he reflected this feeling and was glad he'd told her, no matter how strongly Kakuzu glared at him. She tucked the piece of paper back into a pocket hidden under her cloak somewhere and got up to leave. When she stood and looked down at him, Hidan felt a sudden itching of his fingertips, a desire to touch. He wondered what that might be since she was totally covered up and all, and then realized the feeling was coming from her. He became aware that he was not covered up in the slightest above the waist, and quite glad for that. The unknown _thing_ he'd felt earlier between them didn't disappear as she walked away, it just felt like it stretched somehow. He knew. He knew her, somehow. And he would make Kakuzu drive him to that address if he had to rip off his own arm and use it as a spear to do it!

Speaking of which...he turned to glare at Kakuzu, who was staring at him with an expression that said _Wow. Just wow. _Kakuzu raised an eyebrow upon seeing the look on his face and sighed. "We're going to meet up with your new girlfriend no matter what I say, aren't we?"

"Fuck yes, we are going exactly there, and you will listen closely as fuck to whatever she has to say. I'm glad you've finally learned some sense!" Hidan sighed happily and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. He then opened his eyes and got a confused look on his face for a few seconds before turning and asking, "Wait...did you say girlfriend?"

Kakuzu decided he probably wouldn't get as good an opportunity for some teasing ever again. "Yes, I said girlfriend. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's about time you settled down and stopped living like a caveman in the woods. You're about at the age for settling down, maybe marriage, perhaps even kids." Hidan looked like he was going to explode with some combination of embarrassment and anger and end this line of thinking, so Kakuzu quickly added "And you should work on not looking so lovestruck in public. After swooning that visibly, she _definitely _thinks you're an easy mark for any favors she wants. I wish I had thought to pull out my phone and take a picture, it was so artistic. You could be in a museum exhibition of human emotions."

Hidan held himself back just in time from breaking the bottle Kakuzu was allegedly not done drinking from and threatening him with it. Instead, he reached over and slapped Kakuzu's hand like it was a misbehaving puppy. "Sh-shut up you moron! I wasn't lovestruck! She just felt really powerful and like I knew her and I'm pretty sure there was or is or should be something between us that I don't know what it is. Fuck off!"

Kakuzu decided to let him dig his hole deeper.

"I don't, like, want any of that shit with her! She just looked kind of amazing and fucking sweet and I'm really sure that whatever she has to say will be awesome. Yeah, maybe a decent lay too if she wants to go for that. But that's not what she was here for, and you know it!" Hidan stumbled upon a strategy that might be much more effective, and changed tactics. "Besides, I'm pretty sure I felt you cowering and shit when she was looking at you. You know exactly what I mean when I talk about that look in her eyes! It was like she could've taken care of you in a heartbeat, and you know it, you coward. Don't go accusing me of anything when you think she must be pretty awesome too!"

Kakuzu was pretty sure that any moment now people were going to start looking, and he was ashamed to admit he had felt a shrinking fear-like sensation under her gaze. "I'm no coward, and I will sell you to the zoo if you say that ever again. But fine, if you want to deny it, go ahead. Just don't come running to me if you want a wingman to help you ask her out."

Hidan didn't break the bottle, but he did sweep it off the table where it smashed to the ground, made a hazardous mess, and attracted the opposite amount of attention from what Kakuzu had been aiming for. "Did you just say I'd NEED HELP?!"

Kakuzu fumbled again as he hurriedly picked up his cards and tried to avoid meeting anyone's eyes. "Shut up, shut up you braindead idiot!" He cursed himself under his breath at the same time for using the "H" word. That had never once, ever, been a good idea. That word was only good for provoking Hidan into something stupider than usual. What was he thinking? "Yell at me outside if you want, just _please stop now_."

Hidan clenched his fists and stormed out theatrically, headed for the car. Kakuzu left money on the table to cover their drinks and the cleanup and left soon after. As he pulled his coat over his tanktop and thanked god he normally wore a mask to hide his stitches, he was forced to ask for the umpteenth time just _today _why he put up with Hidan's ridiculous childishness. At that moment, all of Hidan's many competencies just didn't seem like enough.

**A/N: The first introduction has been completed! And I don't mean Hidan. This chapter marks the introduction of the labeling system. Now that the story has more than one character (not counting the mysterious shadow characters, not yet), it is necessary to label a scene with the name of whoever the italicized thought-text in that scene will belong to. I'm not sure if the shadow characters will ever have a scene for their thoughts - at this time, I have no plans to ever have scenes from their perspective, except maybe as a one-time "write a whole chapter from the perspective of some side character" challenge. I have no idea what such a chapter would be labeled, because they won't be called by name at any point. **

**Sometimes, in scenes where multiple characters are gathered, the material discussed is important to everyone, and/or any other reason it would just work better for me to give you access to everyone's thoughts, I will label a scene **General**. I've been thinking about potentially having scenes where some characters' thoughts are important and the others' aren't. In that case, the scene would be labeled by a group name for the important ones. I don't know whether or not there will be a scene like that, just wanted to let you know about an idea I haven't decided on. **

**Til next time: Want to find out what's going on with Hidan? Stick around! It might take a while to get all of it, just because there's so much.**

**Is Konan a puppet? Let's see!**

**Who are the mysterious shadow characters, and what do they want?**

**How many subplots can I make up out of the random list of things Konan learned about? (Already got 1!)**

**Incidentally, Arson, Murder and Jaywalking is a trope listed on TV Tropes. I am very grateful to TV Tropes for giving me a way to find fanfictions to read. Before, I would just go to the show I wanted and browse, which always went something like this: "Too much romance. Sounds boring. I have no idea if I'll like this one, skip it. Oh, that looks interesting...enough to read? Eh..." The result was that I read perhaps 5 fanfics for a couple different fandoms before I just stopped looking, and I browsed dozens of pages in both over a couple of years. I think it's the descriptions that are doing it. Descriptions don't grab me the same way an actual account of something that happens in the story does. TV Tropes helped me find fanfics by requiring examples of why the story qualifies to be listed under a trope. If there's anyone reading this who has the same problem, it might help. I have already read that same number of fanfics over again since I started reading TV Tropes, and it's only been a few months! CAUTION: make sure you have a few hours before you venture to the site, or else read on your phone so you can only open one tab at a time. If reading on a computer, make sure it can handle a dozen tabs being open at once. **


	4. Oddities

**A/N: Apologies for the delay in updating the character list last time. Hidan's introduction was thrown in just because the chapter wasn't long enough without it, not planned, and also I hadn't thought about updating the character list since I first came up with the idea. Between the two I forgot until the next day, late at night. The mistake was promptly fixed. The impact of having made a mistake should help me remember for next week.  
**

**Konan**

As she walked out of the bar, a noticeable wave of lightheadedness hit. She moved aside and stopped for a few seconds to marvel at the fresh air and presence of light. Now that she thought about it, the bar had actually been surprisingly dark when you looked past the plenitude of things to look at. She had been in bars before, but only on spying missions because such places happened to be useful for gathering information. She had never actually tasted alcohol, and the bars in question had been in her world. If he hadn't been there, this lack of experience might have seriously injured her efforts. But he _had _been there, shirtless and with his hair combed back, looking just like he usually did. Well, almost. She had expected Hidan to trust her to some degree after merely looking, and she had expected him to persuade others to trust her by whatever method he may choose. But the way he acted hadn't been at all what she expected. What she expected was that he wouldn't remember her, would treat her as a stranger. Instead he'd been taken aback by her presence, as if he hadn't remembered her until she showed up at which time he was overcome by a blast from the past. That was the only reason she could think of why he'd looked so overwhelmed by her presence. One normally didn't have to think much about a stranger; that's what snap judgments based on only a few characteristics are for. Strangers don't warrant intense mental energy, not at first glance. Yet intense focus and thought was what she'd gotten, and Konan could not think of any reason why that might be. The only way this general rule of human interaction could be defied was if the stranger had some characteristic that was particularly interesting (which she did not seem to), they weren't strangers (but he wasn't supposed to remember her), or if more information was available than just a few characteristics. She knew well the surprisingly high quality of Hidan's eyes, so it was possible that upon first meeting he could have learned much more about who she was and other things simply by looking. She didn't think he could have seen enough to be so overwhelmed by, though. Had something changed for him?

Her senses restored, Konan turned left and proceeded to follow Hidan's instructions. The buildings did seem to be grouped in rough rectangular shapes, so she guessed that "blocks" meant intersections. After reaching the second intersection, she stopped. He had said that if she turned left, there would be an aquarium, but if she did not, there would be someone else at a gas station. Who to visit first? She decided that it would be easier to explore the dead ends first. If she went to the aquarium, the only person she could see working with marine life was Kisame, who wasn't very sociable and open to forming connections. He was the least likely to know anyone else she needed. Whoever it was at the gas station, they had to be more outgoing and/or open than Kisame, because it was very difficult to be less so unless one was a full-time hermit or agoraphobe. Aquarium first, then. She turned left.

**Kisame**

*sigh* _I love my job. _

This was what the shark-man thought as he carefully placed dead fish into the shark bucket, carefully checking to see if any of them were diseased as he did so. The smell of fish might not be good for one's social life, but Itachi didn't mind and neither did any others he was casual acquaintances with, and that was all the social life he desired. Kisame was very glad to be back at his job after a couple months of vacation, and to see Itachi again. Just as importantly, he was glad to see Samehada again.

_Well, that's fitting. A shark among sharks. Not that that's _really _the case. _He tugged his work hoodie tighter over the gills on his shoulders, then picked up the bucket and began the walk to the shark tank. _No, stop it, Kisame. You know damn well that is really the case. You are a shark. Own it like you always have. What's up with this sudden insecurity? _The uncomfortable truth was, he didn't really know. It had just happened very recently, within days, that he'd started really noticing what he was and how weird it was. It was irrational of course. He'd always been very sharky in appearance, and there was no reason why that fact should be different now. It just seemed kind of weird that he hadn't really noticed that other people _weren't_ sharky until that same time. But who cares about that? Insecurity was for people who weren't strong enough to resist social conditioning about their bodies. He was no weakling like that! _But still...nobody else has looked at me funny, it's just my own personal discomfort. For my own comfort, maybe I should find out why I have scales and gills, etc. Facts are facts, and the facts are that's abnormal. _Okay, _that _was a way of stating it that was acceptable. Not general insecurity about appearance, just curiosity about a phenomenon he'd seen. That was cool.

Also cool were the waters of the shark tank. Kisame looked up at it, observed how easily its occupants swam, and scanned the bottom. His favorite of its fishy residents usually rested on the bottom, which he fully recognized was not something that sharks were able to do. Well, some species were, and he didn't really know what species Samehada was, but even they did it only by pumping water over their gills. He'd gotten the chance to look at Samehada resting like that for an extended time once, and it appeared to be perfectly natural and easy, not taking energy at all. It occurred to Kisame that perhaps his realization some days ago when he'd come back from vacation had a silver lining to it. _Now we both get to be freaks of the shark tank. I like spending time with him even better now that we have more in common. _Samehada had never been sexed, but it was easier to think of a "best friend" as the same gender he was.

Today, Kisame got no such opportunity for extended observation. By the time he spotted his dark-scaled pal half hidden under a rock, Samehada had spotted him and almost immediately rushed to the top of the tank where the feeding platform was. Kisame grinned and climbed up the ladder as fast as was recommended. When he got there, Samehada had managed to throw himself halfway out of the water, and lay there slapping the ground with his small pectoral fins. He couldn't raise his head without risking slipping back into the water, so he made a rattling growling sound and wagged his body slightly as Kisame approached.

This latest incident was one of many that had previously meant little to Kisame except as proof of how special his favorite was, but which ever since his revelation had inspired fear. He looked around quickly and saw no one except a janitor starting her rounds of this floor on the other side of the large room. Even so, he crouched down and allowed Samehada to bite his hand in the usual playful manner only warily, and with his senses still fully open in case a supervisor or somebody else with authority walked in. As he slipped off his thick gloves, which was a safety violation he'd have been fired for if any inspectors had been investigating at that moment, he wondered why his life seemed to have shifted into such a bizarro dimension when absolutely nothing in it had changed. His fingers free, Kisame was able to reach a very thin patch around Samehada's dorsal fin which was one of the only areas of the shark's body with exposed skin, and began to lightly scratch. Samehada's grip on his other hand lightened, and he seemed to roll over onto his side like a pet dog while rumbling contentedly. Kisame looked around once more and leaned in to whisper, "Do you have any idea how many tenets of shark biology you are breaking right now?" Samehada flapped his pectoral fins again, but otherwise gave no reply. Kisame stopped scratching, patted his shark friend on the snout, and slipped on his gloves as Samehada wriggled backwards into the water just in time for the janitor to come by.

Aside from him, the people who came to check on the tank itself after him, and the people caring for animals in other exhibits, the janitorial staff were the only ones that regularly stayed in the building until this time. Therefore, he knew this one. She had been hired sometime during his vacation, and seemed to come by the shark tank at the start of her rounds a little too often for coincidence. She was friendly, seemed to genuinely care for the animals she saw as she passed, and had a sturdy but small frame topped with dark brown hair in a short, smooth ponytail. She smiled up at him with a hardly noticeable glance at his broad shoulders as she mopped up spilled water. Kisame noticed anyway and deliberately turned his attention back to the water as he splashed the surface and spread fish chunks and a small amount of blood on it. The tank's smaller residents were the fastest to come up in response, and he slid the smaller fish from the bucket into their mouths as soon as they came up. When the feeding was over and Samehada politely swam out to him, only then did he dare look down. The janitor was gone.

_Thank god. Weirdest end to a vacation ever, fretting over my appearance like a little girl, Itachi's acting all funny, basically everything's not how it was when I left. This is no time to even consider dating, even if it wasn't already a good idea to never date someone you work with. _Kisame shook out his shoulders and relaxed, but not too much. He still had something to do. Slipping off his glove, he allowed Samehada to munch on his hand again while he pulled out a larger fish, the last one in the bucket. "The feeding" was part of his work duties, when he had to feed the sharks. His time with Samehada was totally different. He took back his hand and held the fish vertically from its mouth. Samehada wriggled and splashed excitedly before assuming the same position in the water. Then Kisame flipped the fish backwards in the air, catching it in the same position for a 360. Samehada curled inwards like an armadillo, flapped his fins wildly to tilt backward, then arched his body the opposite way and waved his tail and fins wildly to turn in place until he was facing up again. _I know they have cartilage which is softer and more flexible than bone, but that still seems impressive. _Kisame noted that the flailing of his tail and fins looked much more graceful this time than last, and decided to leave off the third move and give him the fish now. Samehada took it and gladly began to rip it to shreds, swallowing precisely none of his prey and starting a feeding frenzy among the smaller sharks. Kisame raised his hand, Samehada flapped his fins in the water, and then the shark swam to the bottom while the shark-man smiled, put on his gloves, picked up his bucket, and put everything back where it was supposed to go for the last few minutes of his day. Then he changed into less fishy clothes and made to leave, walking out of the aquarium which was his sanctuary and directly into Bizarro Land for his (scheduled without his permission) guided tour.

Before he could even get the chance to relax and unwind his thoughts from his place of employment, Kisame realized with a start that there seemed to be someone waiting for him. His feelings about this were mixed. On the one hand, his first response was justified annoyance at having one more oddity to add to everything else that seemed a little weird. He did _not _like dealing with things pouring down all at once; it was much preferable when they rained down one at a time. But no, as the old saying said, life didn't work like that. But soon his attention was captured by the color of her hair, and his annoyance forgotten.

He did a double take, or perhaps just extended his first, upon catching a glimpse of her hair. It was blue. A slightly lighter, more cheerful looking shade than the color of his own hair, but nonetheless it was blue. The same part of him that was annoyed to have to deal with a stranger now lightened his spirits as he wondered if perhaps she knew why everything seemed to be strange all of a sudden. Blue hair was one of the things that was definitely not normal. Some company in Bizarro Land! His eyes then moved slightly, taking in everything about her. He had no idea what to make of her clothing. _...Maybe company in Bizarro Land isn't always a good thing. _His eyes caught hers, and he saw intention in her gaze. _Uh-oh. _She strode closer to meet him halfway and stopped a little closer than strangers usually did when meeting for the first time. Her eyes didn't waver or even seem to register him, as if she was prepared for this, and she said in a businesslike tone "Hello," the sort of hello that serves as a quick prelude to more important matters. _Oh no. She must be a Bizarro Land native, here to drag me even deeper. What is going on? _

Konan was prepared to say more, but suddenly stopped to allow a pause into the conversation. She hadn't expected Kisame to be quite this paranoid, although he usually was at least a little wary, but he seemed beyond wary and downright skittish right now. Only now was her head clear enough to fully process all the things she hadn't expected from her first encounter with Hidan and Kakuzu, and the look on Kisame's face helped her recall the similar look on Kakuzu's face. She suddenly wondered why he'd looked a little frightened. It hadn't seemed important in her joy at seeing Hidan again. Was something about her intimidating them? She hadn't practiced looking innocuous after realizing that the average civilian saw nothing, but they were shinobi, not average civilians. What was going on?

She lowered her gaze and her head a little, the better to seem unthreatening. "My apologies," she said. "I have been overly hasty. My name is Konan. I was given directions here by Hidan because I wished to ask you something. You are Kisame, correct?"

"...Yes." was his reply. "Hidan told you where to find me?"

"Yes."

"Ah." Okay, that changed things. Hidan seemed to have his head on straight, and to know who was okay or not without much effort. The white-haired guy had even told him what Samehada was like in personality the first time they'd met face to snout, although the shark put on a fierce face for newcomers. If Hidan had figured this lady was okay to send over, then she was probably okay. Didn't mean he'd take her up on whatever it was she wanted, but this "Konan" girl seemed worth a listen. "What did you want to ask me?"

"I'm trying to look into something important." she began. "I would like you and several other people to help me find out more about some unusual things around here." She reached under her cloak and pulled out a paper with an address written on it. "I've already invited Hidan and Kakuzu to this location to hear what I have to say. Your help would be appreciated."

Kisame also had enough passing familiarity with the town's layout to recognize that address as not any kind of public place close to town, probably a decent distance outside it. His first reactions to this pitch were _1\. No. 2. Scam? 3. Nah, probably worse. 4. Seriously? 5. If she's a serial killer or something, she should be better at this. 6. Nothing about any of this seems normal or not-freaky in any way. 7. Whoa woah whoa woah woah...Back up to the part where she said investigating freaky things? 8. Is she trying to kidnap me as a freaky thing to investigate? Jeez, that's a paranoid thought even for me. _And finally, _9\. She said Hidan would be there?_

"You said he and Kakuzu would be there?" the shark-man asked. That was the one thing about her pitch that got him actually considering it beyond how serial-killery it sounded. Even if he was one of the oddities she wanted to investigate, he had just been thinking of that himself a few minutes ago. Looking into weird things happening recently was actually a pretty good way of describing what he wanted to do. Itachi, himself, lots of things seemed odd. Kisame had to admit, that sounded like a pretty good way to get at what he wanted to know as well. That is, if he trusted this lady really wanted what he was reading into her words. She'd been just vague enough to sound enticing without letting him know specific details of what she wanted. That was usually a bad sign. It all came down to trust, and right now he had no reason to trust her. No reason except that someone he did trust had found a reason to.

"Yes. Well, Hidan agreed to. I was convinced of his ability to force Kakuzu into this, so I left it at that." She smiled at this, and it didn't seem overly polite. Actual human feeling entered her face for a split second, and she looked like an actual woman for the first time this discussion. Kisame still didn't plan to agree to anything on the spot, but perhaps. He was definitely edging closer to being willing to do this. Maybe. Once she left and he was free to do whatever without her knowing, necessarily. Of course, if she had further talking to do once he got there he was free to respond anyway he wanted to that. He was finally willing to believe she wanted something he might actually be willing to give. But good god, did this lady not know how to convince him of that.

"Your technique needs work," he said once the burst of visible feelings had passed and she looked businesslike again. "Your eyes are just way too...directed. I was wondering if you were a robot for a second there, from your face. I was also wondering about the odds of you being a serial killer. Maybe tone down the eyes and try looking more human if you want anyone who's not like Hidan to agree to things." Kisame tried to mention this in a businesslike manner to match hers, but he couldn't help shivering while asking her to look more human. _Wuss. _Well, at least it helped get his point across if she noticed. Itachi had tried advising him to be more willing to put forth a good-faith effort to be friendly in the past, and even though he wasn't willing to be sure that he really should be helping her to convince people, this was the exact sort of distrust Itachi didn't want him to be plagued by. _Maybe I should try baby steps, not trust the creepy lady first of all people. How do I even know she really did get Hidan to agree? Maybe she just knows I would trust his opinion over hers. _More shivers ran down his spine. _I don't like to feel so paranoid. I don't. It's just that I don't think there's any choice, just look at all the stories of terrible people taking advantage of people. If anyone's going to trust anyone, it's not going to be me. I'll outsource that to people who can tell who to trust, let them demonstrate._

Konan did notice the slight shiver, and she realized her flat face might not be helping her to inspire trust in others. That thought hadn't occurred to her. She focused and attempted to bring it down. Her efforts only partially succeeded. As for her eyes, she supposed lowering them was the best she could do. It was at this point that she discovered that body language in general is just as hard to un-fake once one becomes used to doing so as it is to fake at first. It just wasn't coming naturally. She nodded politely at Kisame and tried to inject more emotion into her voice as she thanked him and promised she would try. It sounded terribly wrong, and once she realized this she put in some effort to un-suppress a wince. She tried so too late, however, so it looked like a feigned wince. This was going to be a long adventure. Konan didn't expect she would gain anything more by standing here trying to take his advice, so she quickly raised a hand in farewell and walked away, trying not to look like she was scurrying away in embarrassment. Of course her effort to suppress that was much too successful and Kisame had to take a few seconds to work out that that was what she was doing from the speed and silence of her departure. Neither of them felt entirely comfortable, but no matter. He had agreed in his head. She had a gas station to visit. Thank god for Hidan's unwitting assistance. Konan almost hallucinated a sliding sound as she put that bit of awkwardness out of her head. It was time to visit the next person in her expanding web of contacts.

**Konan**

As she retraced her steps to the intersection and made a different turn, Konan pondered the new information she'd received from her discussions with her former coworkers. From Hidan, she'd learned that she could have quite an effect on the amnesiac shinobi of this world. On the other hand, she'd learned from Kakuzu and Kisame that said effect was not necessarily positive. Hidan had very strange tastes in what he found pleasurable, so she guessed it was safe to assume it would almost always be negative. Sakumo hadn't reacted to her, but that had been the night before her decision to metaphorically blast down her road and lose control for a while. That and Kisame's mention of her eyes suggested that whatever her powerful inner will was, it was scaring everyone else just as badly as it had scared her. Except for Hidan, of course. He probably liked the feeling of being in front of something that could destroy him.

_How improbably lucky. I expected him to be more willing to trust me without reason, but I didn't expect his masochism to play a part too. Was that what Kisame meant? Did he mean anyone who's not masochistic like Hidan? That doesn't seem quite right, actually. He was advising me to show more emotion when he said that. It doesn't match. What part of what Hidan is like was Kisame referring to? _Regardless, the hardest part of her quest to unite the Akatsuki was over (or so she thought). Kisame was the most cautious and distrustful of others; surely, whoever was next would be more open and willing to tell her more. Whoever this was could tell her what he'd meant. Konan slowed her pace and walked casually to the corner across from the gas station. There could be no doubt about who she saw sitting there near the door. _Him. He can surely tell me everything I wish to know. Just as long as I'm careful..._

**Itachi**

He'd known someone unusual was coming for the past 10 seconds or so. As she reached the halfway point of the block, his ears had registered and brought to his brain's attention the approach of someone with a strange tread. Even as the approaching person slowed to a walking pace, he was not fooled by the imitation of a casual manner. Some instinct told Itachi that he was the destination this someone had in mind, and he did not disregard instincts like that. Another instinct told him this approach, strange as it was, did not seem threatening. Itachi did not know why he had an instinct to tell him that, but ever since several months ago he had become very aware that he was not as regular as he'd always thought he was. Or rather, his definition of "regular" had changed and the blinders come off. _I'm not quite what I thought I was. Is this person?_

The steps stopped on the corner across the street from him, and he turned his head to look to the right. Across the street looking back at him was a woman he had never seen before in unusual costume. The paper flower nested in her blue hair was a nice touch, but did not reduce the aura of authority radiating from her intense gaze and body posture. _Not just authority. Something else as well. Predation? _Her form was completely covered by a thick black cloak with red cloud designs on the lower half. _This is not a woman to be trifled with. Black conveys authority. Red clouds could mean blood clouds, or perhaps sunset or sunrise. _Thick boots with open toes covered her feet, and appeared to extend some distance up her legs. _Completely covered, from head to ankle. Even her face reveals little. Only her eyes show anything at all, and it looks hungry. _In a way, her appearance was comforting. Itachi hadn't had much time for Kisame lately; he'd been too busy exploring new parts of himself, and did not know how to explain that to his friend just yet. What he had found was a great many things he could do that did not match his past experience. Always peaceful in his dealings with other people, Itachi was curious as to why offensive moves and strategical thinking as in a battle should be easy or natural for him. But without ever having lived such a life or being trained, he could think that way and fight if need be. This woman appeared to be just the same way. Despite her predatory vibe, he sensed no hostility. Itachi smiled sincerely, and raised his hand to welcome his opponent to the field of verbal sparring. _She can certainly tell me what I wish to know. But only if I'm careful… _

**General**

The woman nodded slightly in response, and her ears twitched noticeably as she listened for traffic before walking across the street to join him. She smiled, apparently feeling the same about their unexpected kinship, and sat down across from him with her legs folded beneath her. She looked him in the eyes and said, "Konan." in response to a question he had not yet asked.

"Itachi," he responded likewise.

Only then did her gaze break with his. Her eyes drifted over his left shoulder to the guitar case lying open next to him, its contents visibly including a comfortable array of money. She looked back at him as if that was a small surprise, but not completely out of the expected. He nodded back. Some of it was brought to start, should he need food or drink during the afternoon, but much was not. In addition to Kisame who had contributed his usual $5 over his lunch break, some others liked to regularly come by and listen. There was a certain patron he could usually count on to appear out of thin air whenever a cheerful melodic tune was played, and by sitting at Itachi's side and gazing out into the crowd with visible joy and a certain innocence could almost summon money. Of course it was not impossible for said patron's companion to provide such an effect, but he almost never put forth an effort to do so. Itachi had never asked them to assist him together. It might give his regular customer base an experience to never be equaled and drive them away.

Konan had not thought about what Itachi or any of her teammates would do in this world, but now that she considered it music made perfect sense for someone with his sensibilities. If any of them stayed in contact with her after her truly outrageous proposal, she would have to ask. This indicated some good things. First, he was smart enough to make a living at something so variable. Combined with the way he had analyzed her at first glance, that said very good things about his closeness to his shinobi heritage. It would make him a lot easier and more interesting to talk to and convince. Second, he must have many people come to listen to him. At this rate that would mean he knew every Akatsuki member in town. She decided to get serious and began her assault in earnest.

"You seek answers," she began. "Some of them, I likely know. Some others, I may not know right now, but I'm in a better position to understand than you are. The rest, I might know someone who knows. Or perhaps you do. Those answers are not to be considered relevant for right now."

"Of course," Itachi replied. _That's a hard bargain. What could she want? _"Those answers you don't know right now, you will need help to find. That's why we're talking, isn't it? You need answers for yourself as well, and to get them you need me." _I don't like gambling. _

_He's right of course. I need to stall for time to think. _"Not necessarily. I need more people than just you, and for what I have in mind it would not be improbable if several refused. On the other hand, the people I need are the same ones you could use to further your own search, and if they don't accept my offer they're out of luck and no use to you. If they do, you're out of luck. I seem to be in a unique position to understand the situation here." _Something feels wrong…_

Itachi's eyes widened at that. _A threat? Of course, I shouldn't have expected someone with that look in her eyes to be any good at diplomacy. _"Well, that's all right. You seem not to belong here. Unlike you, I do, and probably the others you are referring to are my friends. I won't accept bullying to them or to me."

Konan became conscious of her language, and attempted to summon more resources to her mind to change it. _Crap. That's what was wrong. My disadvantage is exactly what he's realized, and I've led him right to it. Instinctive hostility to an enemy won't work. I must not think of him as an enemy. But how to think of him otherwise? _"Bullying? Not exactly. I have no plans to interfere with you and your friends. The reason you would be out of luck is that the answers you want aren't such simple ones that can be spouted off on a street corner. There is a very real strength in numbers, which is why I've already gathered several at a place I deem suitable. I don't need to convince you. I need to convince all of you, which is why I will not reveal what I know, how I know it, or any reason you should accept my knowledge as an answer until I have everyone."

Itachi considered this. _She's got me there. Whatever she knows, she holds and can release at any time, whereas my help can only be promised over the future. But what could it possibly be, that all of us need to be together at once to hear it? _"Strength in numbers it is. Why do I need to hear it directly from you? We may find our own answers together."

"The strength I speak of is not for your benefit. It's for mine." Konan replied. _Itachi speaks about understanding things using common methods. He has no idea what he's talking about. _"Like I said, the answers you seek are not simple ones that can be spouted off on a street corner. The greatest obstacle to you knowing them is yourself. The answers you want are the same as the reasons I have for convincing you and the others to help me. I want you to know them. However, they are so improbable that any individual attempt to convince you of them would likely fail. My reason for gathering everyone is quite simple. I need to harness the bonds you have with each other to break through collective disbelief. Only those bonds can allow you to believe it. Are you willing to wait as long as it takes, become as desperate as it takes, to be willing to leave your little bubble?"

_Refuge in audacity. She thinks I'm not strong enough to acquire my own answers because they have that as a shield. I've always considered myself open minded, but… That's all relative. Open minded compared to others, maybe. But this is something I cannot explain, and I've tried asking both grown and literal children. _Itachi realized that he had no answer. Part of being open minded is realizing the extent of one's own bubble, so he definitely knew he had one. She didn't belong in town, was on the very edge of his bubble already, and seemed to believe that her own words were further out. _I'm beaten. I'm in no position to refuse answers, and it seems I would be doing so no matter what unless I help her. _

Itachi closed his eyes and lowered his head. "No." After some time, he looked up to see her head bowed slightly as well. She opened her eyes and looked at him, establishing eye contact once more. Her nod congratulated him as a worthy opponent.

Then Konan returned to business. "I need one thing first of all. I need to know where I can find some others. If you are as popular as that case of money suggests, you should know them. I will need Sasori, Deidara, and - Nagato."

Itachi's ears pricked at that little pause before Nagato's name. What was that for? At any rate, he did know them. "Nagato should be easy to find. At this time of day" - the sun was descending, and the sky colored everything blue - "they usually enjoy the sunset from the park. I wish you good luck with Sasori. Sincerely. He's more paranoid than Kisame nowadays. Deidara...has not been adjusting well since he returned from the military. Something to do with bombs, Sasori says. I do not know where Deidara lives, and Sasori will not tell you. He's very worried about Dei getting in trouble with law enforcement, he's not going to allow a strange woman to know things like that. If you want Deidara, you'll have to convince Sasori to bring him along. Sasori's not the easiest to recruit for any effort to begin with, and as far as I know he has no desire or need for anything you may promise. He works at the auto shop on the north side of town, normally until late enough that he should still be there if you go to the park first. I don't mean to be discouraging, but...good luck."

_They? _Konan wondered about that choice of pronoun. _I only asked about Nagato… No, Itachi implied that would be the easier of my two tasks. Not worth spending too much effort on. _It sounded like she had bigger problems. Much, much bigger. _Oh gods. Sasori. Kisame's paranoid, but he generally has reason to act at least. He was motivated enough by my proposal to help him find out more about strange things. Sasori? None of the things that drove him in my old world will apply here, since immortality is impossible to achieve. This version of him does sound motivated, but motivated to protect what he already has and not take risks. By Deidara, of all people. Could I possibly convince him that it would be in Deidara's best interest? _

Instead of voicing any of this, she thanked Itachi, confirmed that the park he described was the one she'd been in earlier, and got the location of Sasori's workplace. Then she showed him the address of the abandoned building. Only after he closed the guitar case, picked it up, and made to leave did she remember what had seemed so interesting after her discussion with Kisame.

"Itachi." Konan called. He turned. "I remembered a question I was hoping you could answer. It's not essential. I just wished to know, since you know both Kisame and Hidan, what Kisame meant by a certain statement. He felt like giving me advice on how to be more convincing, and told me that I should show more emotion, I believe the exact phrase was 'Look more human', so that people who aren't like Hidan would trust me. What does that mean?"

Itachi tilted his head and regarded her in an odd way. She would have asked why, but after only a few seconds he concluded his reasoning with "Hmm. He's as unbelievable as you have claimed to be, but perhaps a different kind of unbelievable." He briefly ran through the paraphrase she had given him to make sure. "If, as you said, Kisame's comment was related to you needing to show more human feelings, he was probably referring to Hidan's ability to perceive feelings without needing them to be expressed. If you maintained a hostile tone but really felt that you were helping Hidan, for example, he would have also felt sincere goodwill and understood that you had no hostile intentions, even if all your words seemed to say otherwise. That's the most likely explanation." Itachi turned again. "I should go quickly. Goodbye."

**Konan**

_Oh, I see. _Or at least Konan thought she did. _I should have thought of that myself. Hidan likes to make judgements of people, it is essential to his survival after all. I didn't expect it to be known to others, but he seems to actually have a social life in this world. Of course they would know he has such an ability to make accurate judgements. _The specifics of Itachi's words were lost as she recalled her own knowledge of Hidan. That would be a reason to facepalm, or at least blush later. For now, she returned to the same park the evening's adventures had started in.

It looked different now. In the daytime, a few spring flowers either wild or planted had bloomed in a scattered, disorganized way, adding splashes of brightness to the scene but not much else. At this time, with the sun down to glorious orange in the west, those flowers were not visible. A new flora was, a nighttime shift of white flowers formerly hidden beneath the leafy surface of bushes, now bursting out. Once the sun was but a dull ember, she expected the air to become a lot more fragrant than it had been at any point previously.

She looked around at the entrance to the park. Here, there were several seating areas for the casual visitor who had no desire for a walk but nonetheless wanted to be outside in some visible way. They were of medium age, with the wood worn gray and neither excessively splintery nor worn smooth. Perhaps some nails had been poorly formed or in bad places from the start, and a few planks of the benches could be seen to visibly tilt. This would not make it hard to sit in them, in fact it added a strange charm. Some of the tables at either side of the trail leading in from the entrance had (perhaps by design) clumps of the aforementioned spring flowers at their base. Perhaps that was enough for some people, but the far greater show had yet to start. As the trail hardened, became visibly more entrenched and in the mind's eye became as strong as a cleaver carving its way through the dense trees crowding around, the tiny clumps of purple disappeared. The more imposing white blooms emerging from wherever they had hidden from the daylight now seemed about to drape themselves over some of the benches planted just at the edge of the trees. Considering last night's moonlight, a show of almost magical glowing appearance should be beginning soon. But, there was no one there to see it. All seats stood empty.

Konan regretted the sense of duty now and briefly wished to take a moment for herself and herself alone, but such feelings could happen from time to time among shinobi away on missions. She pushed it aside and reasoned that deep blooms are often found in the trees, hidden away in the dark as well, so she probably wouldn't miss a thing as the moon rose. With that she plunged into the depths after committing to memory a map of the park's layout.

The first fork on the trail led to a seating area consisting of entirely tables like the ones next to the entrance, enclosed in a clearing. Nobody was there. The second fork led to a couple benches overseeing a small pond. Nobody was there, either. At the very opposite end the trail left the trees and there was some seating outside a small shop. No one was there either. At this point Konan could see the occasional moth fluttering out of some hiding place into the night, and she wondered about Itachi's instructions. Had there been something she'd missed?

The only thing she could think of was her timing. Perhaps he'd assumed that she would have a car like everyone else seemed to? In that case, she was too late. Konan took a deep breath of the lightly scented air and disregarded that. It wouldn't do to lose hope now. The other option was that he hadn't expected her to be in such a hurry, in which case she'd arrived too early. In either case, she had to return to the entrance. Back into the darkness she plunged, a darkness filled to overflowing with whispering breezes, an almost-liquid scent pouring from flowers splayed open in the shape of a spout. In the blue twilight, Konan could almost lose track of herself, become a part of the darkness. Just another silent whisper pouring through the air, breaking and merging into an ever-changing assembly of every shape at once. She opened her mouth and let the air pour through, losing herself in the atmosphere. Like many of her desires in the wild, this was one that was well suited to ninja life. To merge with the environment is to sense all within it. Sadly this was better accomplished in the wild, which the Rain Village did not have much of. Sure would've come in handy that time...

A piercing light entered the darkness, and Konan slowed her pace. The trees whispered and the leaves filled with secrets. The light was peculiar, a bluish-white glow that actually was not as piercing as it had seemed. It had only seemed so because a single leaf had moved aside to let a single beam through. The end, or really the beginning, of the trail was visible, which led Konan to realize that this must be the light of the tall lamp she had seen over the benches with their backs to the trees. The sunset had still been bright enough earlier, it had not been on. Ducking to avoid the light, keep it from piercing her armor of darkness, Konan crept closer to the light and the benches like a feral outsider.

A moth fluttered past, almost blundering into the side of her head and leaving scales in her eyes in the process. It was not the only one. The air was ripe, and they seemed to swim. A shadow out of her natural home, Konan followed the small ghosts to the light and settled just on the border, crouching behind a bush covered in white flowers. Shyly, she peeked an eye around the bush, and froze. The light from the lamp was nothing compared to the light now filling the bench directly beneath it. Occupying the bench was a thing not of physical light, but the brightness of radiant expressed hope, and silvered beauty. An icicle seemed to penetrate in her throat, wiggle its way through her bones, and as it did so crystallize many more icicles off of itself like a tree limb sprouting branches, so that there was no part of her that did not within seconds feel the pain of deprivation. At once the darkness seemed solid, the shadows no longer fluid but impenetrable, and she was on the wrong side. She was a shadow. That was wrong. The sickening, corrupt feeling from earlier returned. Konan did not move.

The light, in contrast, was full of life. As she stayed there in the dark, her face shielded by the flowers, a universe of moths fluttered through the blue-white light, their furry bodies and churning wings plainly visible. One of the moths landed on an outstretched hand, and then another on a proffered nose. There it perched in perfect serenity, seemingly unaware of its brethren flitting all around it for a light they would never reach. As she watched, it spread its wings but did not take off. It just lay there, the flighty insect tranquilized by the beauty that had captured it. The scene was enough to break Konan's shock, and her chest shook there in the dark. There was little to say or think, except-

_Is this heaven or hell? Both? Neither? It's wrong, impossible. How on earth could it be - _

*****INTERMISSION*****

**A/N: Two things. **

**First thing is, that last line of thought-text was _really, really_ hard to write. Only the first two question marks have survived through all rewrites of this one line. The last interrupted statement was okay the second time around, but I just now rewrote the part in between _again _because that part is just very difficult to write somehow. Gah!**

**Second thing is, heheheheheheheeheeheeheeHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA - ahem, sorry. As I was writing, the impulse to use a cliffhanger like this just appeared. I needed some way to end this scene so there would be a distinction between the two different introductions, and the thought "Why not cut to a completely different scene?" just popped up. Your regularly scheduled scene will pick up next chapter, after the intermission. **

**I underestimated normal chapter lengths a lot, so this story is being posted a lot faster than I thought it would be. As of writing this I have only 2 more chapters ready to go. That's not a bad thing, just some pleasantly defied expectations. Better get typing!**


	5. The Interrupters

**A/N: No, this is not the point. Yes, all of this is important, and to the main plot, not to potential subplots like Konan's list was. This is not the first ship mentioned; the first ship mentioned in this story (the one I said was part of the original dream) was during Hidan's intro scene. In my defense, canon was _really _bad at NOT hinting at stuff like this.**

*****INTERMISSION*****

**Kakuzu**

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. At least, that was the proverb that first came to mind. Kakuzu didn't know if that was the most appropriate proverb, but he supposed someone had to begin things. Since they were doing nothing but waiting around for other people, he might as well.

He heard a door close squeakily some distance away, then Hidan came speeding around the corner into view. The time elapsed in between seemed insufficient. He wondered if Hidan was on "coffee time". But no, there was no caffeine involved. Hidan was simply that excited to be exploring an abandoned building. The younger man had already stated his disappointment that it wasn't haunted when they entered, but his mood had recovered and ever since he'd been exploring all the rooms. In fact Hidan had already claimed dibs on one of the ground floor rooms that was carpeted and had a window facing in the right direction to receive the afternoon sun. He'd also begun to contemplate the virtues of some of the beds on the upper floor, but Kakuzu cut him off out of complete disinterest in the best places to have sex.

What he was much more interested in was the content of Hidan's musings. He'd thought at the beginning that Hidan had an unusually strong sense of direction for a boy. Later, he'd thought that Hidan had an unusually weak sense of direction for a man. There was nothing immediately obvious to disprove that conclusion. When asked about life plans, the younger man never had one. The direction he did show was probably pillaged off other people that felt they should make something of their lives. He seemed to swing wildly, as if on a string, not coming from anywhere and not going anywhere except by accident.

Kakuzu wasn't one to take things on faith, ordinarily. Despite this, he recalled the feeling of pity fading slowly until recently, only a few months ago, he'd realized that there was no pity left. He no longer felt any such thing about his companion, no longer thought it was sad how Hidan's nonexistent past and uncertain future almost certainly coincided to leave him nothing more than a mirror without even any framing of its own. It was just as well that Hidan had developed a strong sense of discretion from being privy to others' secret feelings; Kakuzu couldn't have discussed what he now felt anyway. With no obvious reasons to think any such thing, he now sensed Hidan's existence was empty only in the way a black hole was. The world slid toward him, and he slid toward it. Now, Kakuzu thought perhaps Hidan did not need a sense of direction. He thought he had some idea how the protagonists of fantasy stories felt when they stepped through a mirror to discover a world beyond. The feeling he could not describe was of deepening, of something deepening right beneath his feet. Hidan was not other people's reflections. There was something that he alone was, something which had Kakuzu a little freaked out. He would follow and see what Hidan was up to this time, simply because whatever Hidan was had ordained it. A long time ago, a little white-haired boy's smile at discovering Kakuzu when even he wasn't sure where he was had inspired the thought that that would be the rest of his life.

In that interest, Kakuzu patiently listened now to Hidan describing with the same boundless cheer the virtues of other parts of the building he'd explored. The basement - rather austere looking, from the sound of it. Hidan suggested in one of his cryptic offhand comments that it might be good for Konan. The roof - god alone knew how he got up there, but he'd found a corner that would be nice to sit in, if one liked sitting _in _a part of the roof whose outer structure had broken off. One of the rooms on the upper floor was a double. Birds used the back stoop quite often according to the amount of bird poop layered there. There was a garage around the side of the building, and among other things it had a jug of antifreeze on a shelf. There was also a little shed with access to the parking lot, not big enough to fit a car but perhaps a smaller vehicle. All this was announced rapidly, in about a minute, with Hidan counting off the items on his fingers. Now he paused, his counting finger moving on to the next and hovering there as if he'd forgotten what the seventh item on the list was.

"Hmmm…" Hidan tapped his counting finger up and down slowly. "Something else too, something important…"

"Hidan?"

"Huh? What is it, Kakuzu?"

"While we're waiting, I thought it was a good time to apologise."

"For what? We're cool."

"...I want to anyway. It defeats the purpose to handwave things away like that."

"Okay. Whadja want to apologise for?"

At that moment, the door burst open. Not loudly, but they'd been focused enough not to have noticed the sound of a car driving up, so it was startling anyway. A familiar smell reached Hidan's nose as he poked his head out of the kitchen and ran down to the front lobby. Kakuzu followed.

"Dudes! Hey Kakuzu, Fish Face and Band Boy are here!"

Kakuzu put his hand over his ear and winced. "I'm right here, no need to yell."

Kisame muttered, "Same," then turned to Hidan and requested no nicknames for the rest of the evening. Such a request was enough to make Hidan completely quiet as he pondered what to call them aside from the nicknames he had for them.

While he did so, Kakuzu turned and told the new arrivals of his encounter with the odd-looking woman who had invited them all here and his suspicions. Kisame nodded at the end of his explanation and said "Yeah, me too. Is it just me, or have things been weird enough lately? I did not need to find someone like her waiting for me on top of everything."

Itachi wondered what his friend meant by that, but asked nothing. "Sometimes tension needs to reach a critical point before it releases. I think she is that point."

"What tension?" asked Kakuzu, who was used to greater oddness and had overlooked the many smaller oddnesses he'd noticed over the past few months. "And what do you mean by that?"

Itachi explained. "From what you've said, it sounds like she was relying on persuading Hidan to get you here, so she didn't have to tell you anything about what she wants. I have not heard what she said to convince Kisame, but when she came to me she had to reveal some of her plan to bring me on board.

"What she said to me was that she knew I was seeking answers, and promised that she could tell me what she knows of them and help me find out more. She implied that she was very involved in the current situation in the process. As for bringing us here, she stated that the answers I want to know would be so unbelievable that she could not hope to convince me alone. Her plan is to create a sort of domino effect so we can convince each other of whatever it is she wants us to know. It seems that Hidan is to be the lynchpin. I decided to allow her to do this after she promised that what she wants us to believe are the exact answers to the questions I've been wondering about."

Kisame stared. "The questions? You mean...the weird things? She wants to tell us all about those?"

Itachi stared back. "Yes. I didn't think you would have… When did you notice, Kisame?"

"What the hell is going on here? What is she involved in? And why are you two talking like a bunch of psych cases?"

Hidan reached out and patted Kakuzu on the upper arm gently, as if he was consoling a peer over heartbreak. "Relax, Kakuzu. And also open your eyes and take a fucking look around. Shark-Boy's a shark, and he's got a friend who is a shark but also definitely not one, doesn't feel like any normal shark I've ever met. You've got like a million different stitches all over the place. Where the hell did those come from? And don't tell me that bullshit about getting all cut up from a tractor accident when you were in high school. That's bullshit. Your stitches are lovely looking fresh ones, not nasty old scar tissue."

Hidan turned to the other two and placed a hand over his chest to indicate himself. "Why yes, I did notice, you can close your mouths now. Say, did any of you guys get the feeling that she knew you already? I don't remember meeting her before, but we were _not _strangers. Or at least I wasn't. I thought she might be like a goddess or something, someone who has the power to know you without you knowing it." He looked sideways at Kisame, who was still staring coldly. "I'll think of something else to call you later, gillface. Just wanted to _help _Kakuzu here, so go fuck off yourself."

Kisame put his priorities in order post haste, and decided the nicknames weren't high enough on the list. That question was, though. "Well, she did stand a little close, and she didn't look at me like I was a new sight either. I don't happen to believe in goddesses, so I'm thinking that sounds rather stalkery." He moved closer to Itachi and lowered his voice. "You absolutely sure this is a good position to be in? She promised me the same thing, answers to just what the hell is going on here, but she didn't mention the part about invoking herd mentality. That's what anyone who wants a lot of people to do something stupid does. I'm not comfortable being a flock member. I want the right to get the hell out of here if she sounds like she's losing her mind. I already gave her tips on how to be less creepy, I don't have any more benefit of the doubt to give."

Hidan piped up, "She's not losing her mind! I would have noticed it if I'd felt all unbalanced and shit as soon as she walked up. I didn't!"

"You, balanced? I could see a lot of things that would fly under the radar using you as a standard."

Kakuzu sniffed. "Not to mention, he's in love. She's apparently so amazing, he just couldn't help it. I saw the hearts in his eyes myself."

Hidan turned red and punched Kakuzu in the shoulder ineffectually. "I am _not _in love with her! I remember that, and I remember her looking really cool, and it wasn't - "

The silence pulled everyone's eyes towards Hidan, who appeared to have run out of ranting midsentence. He now studied the floor somewhere to his right with a focused expression. As the seconds dragged on, he put his hand over his chest and muttered almost under his breath, "Konan…" Then he looked down at his hand as if paying attention to his heartbeat, and finally took it away from his chest and put it on his chin in a thinker's pose.

After a second or two, he came back to the space and time he currently occupied and looked at Kakuzu, who was very intrigued. "Huh. I am _not _in love with her."

Kakuzu embraced the intrigue. _This is better than any puzzle I have ever found, almost better than a good book. I knew there had to be a reason I keep him around. _His eyes widened as he became the first to figure out what was meant. "But...you _were_."

Itachi considered Hidan's perception, and his eyes widened too as the difference between past and present became obvious. "In other words, you only felt like you were in love when you were around her?"

Kisame was confused until Itachi said that, at which point he understood. His face paled. "So that means it was _her _that - ?"

"Yeah." Hidan raised a hand to his face and flicked himself on the nose as if to give himself a mild punishment for being a moron. "When she stood up to leave, I felt like touching and I realized that feeling came from her. How the fuck did I not see this?"

Kakuzu put a hand on his shoulder. "It's just as well I decided to apologise then. I was going to say I was sorry for making fun of you. I was just in a mood to tease. Looks like I have extra to apologize for now."

Hidan smirked. "Aww, thanks. That's sweet to say, even if we were already 100% cool." He then stuck his tongue out at Kisame, who was still shocked at this revelation. "That settles it, asshole! Definitely a goddess."

Itachi was as curious as Kakuzu now. "Sadly, she requested the locations of some others, so I sent her on to Sasori and the celestial twins. Sasori alone could take her a while, if she can convince him at all. We'll have to wait."

Kisame had recovered from his shock and found, to his surprise, that he was now disappointed at having to wait for Konan to come back. "Well, at least I have something to wait for now. This settles nothing; there's still no proof she came from 'fluffy, sunshiny' heaven as opposed to being a regular old stalker. I reserve the right to think the worst."

"Sunshine!" Hidan immediately put his fingers back into order and counted off the seventh thing. "That's it! I found this room that's not usable for much, except that it has gigantic windows to let in all the sun. Put some fluffy carpeting down, move in a comfy chair…" He started purring with his hands curled next to his cheeks and moved next to Kakuzu to rub against his shoulder in perfect bliss. _Since when is he a fluffy little housecat? Well, I suppose it does no harm._

Kisame was fascinated in a repulsed way by this, but he shook himself out of his trance and returned to his priorities. "Itachi, why have you been avoiding and acting odd around me lately?"

"I'm sorry. I was looking into the oddities, I didn't know you knew..."

*****END OF INTERMISSION*****

**Nagato**

In the dark, the light shining from the moth's wings dazzled his eyes like the light of a revolving star. It poured through the air, as liquid as the scents from the flowers, and though he didn't know it he was smiling. Beauty and beauty together; and not the fading type, either. The thought _Is this what people mean by "mystical"? _waited patiently for the moment to end, at least in theory. As far as "mystical" could describe the feeling that everything inside his body no longer had any weight, just as if the light outside could pour through his eyes and settle inside, it was probably accurate. If it could convey the sense of rightness that allowed him to drift, helplessly like a feather on a river, toward the beauty he was drawn to with no obstacle, no obstacle at all to stop him, then it was probably accurate. Nagato felt nothing, no fear or doubt, just sheer desire to drown himself in that light as a celestial body desires to fall into its star. Gravity defied itself as the moth simply floated back into the air again, hardly seeming to move its wings. Slowly it hovered, then with a ripple abruptly broke out of the moment and flapped its wings to trace a path upward. That ripple Nagato swore he could see in reality told him the bubble was about to burst, the moment about to end. He redoubled his efforts, but alas, a thing that is only carried by a current cannot speed its journey. He was almost there, just about to reach it, when -

"Wow."

Nagato stopped moving. His face hovered only centimeters from its resting spot, but he remembered what he had forgotten in the moment with the moth, that the distance really was infinite. He had his own motion. He would never be able to fall into his star. Slowly, holding back both his breath and the tears slipping out to fog over his eyes, he slid backward so as not to draw attention. When he had regained a normal seated position still facing his friend, he sighed in relief. Thank goodness, he had not upset the world with his actions after all.

Yahiko had not closed his mouth after his previous exclamation of wonder, and still sat tracing the moth's flight, completely unaware of any potential to be upset. He watched the moths fluttering about in their dance, and wondered if they knew how they were. He smiled gently, a smile that Nagato believed could make anyone who saw it gentle too, and turned to share the sight with his friend.

When their eyes met, they both were smiling. Yahiko smiled wider still at seeing Nagato apparently so moved that there were tears in his eyes. He laughed, and gestured for Nagato to look up with him.

"It tickles a little when they do that, but a good kind of tickling. Kind of like...well...you ever held a caterpillar on your finger and watched it? Kind of like that, except… And, uh, their wings. The light shining through them is different somehow, more...fuzzy? It's like moonlight. A little. Kind of different, actually, but not very much. The whole thing is just really great. I mean…" Yahiko made several motions with his hands as he spoke, reaching out and closing his fists as if he could grab the words he needed out of the air. His face flushed bright red as they refused to come. "They're just so small and fuzzy, and the light's so nice and all of it's brightly lit. It's just right. I'm sorry…"

Nagato poked him in the shoulder. "Don't be sorry. I love trying to talk about things like this, actually. Let's see… It tickles very delicately when they do that, like the very edge of a very soft feather. The light shining through their wings is...that one's really hard to talk about without seeing it, but maybe it's a little like when you see light shining through the water? When you see light like that, and it's so smooth and kind of gentle. The moths are delicate and beautiful, and the light is delicate and beautiful, and the whole thing is just like a moment angels might have pictured on postcards in heaven, with no darkness intruding anywhere. Does that sound close?"

Yahiko slumped backwards over the bench. "Things just sound so _good _when you talk about them. I'd love to help other people feel good with my words like that. How do you do it?" He sighed and lifted his arms off the bench, allowing them to fall with exaggerated emphasis and sprawling in a full body pout. Nagato tried not to giggle, but ended up shaking slightly while smiling which was a dead giveaway so he needn't have bothered. Yahiko turned his head, and managed to keep a very slight pout on his face for only a few seconds before it morphed into a smile, then a full grin. "Well, the part about what it felt like was a little off, it wasn't quite like that," he said as the smile was turning into a grin. Then they were both laughing.

While still convulsing, Yahiko pushed himself upright and got the last of it out. Still grinning, he turned to ask Nagato who was still giggling "Wait a sec, do angels really have postcards in heaven? I've never heard of that, but it would actually be sooooo appropriate if they did. I hope at least some of them send mail to the demons. Imagine if you were just there, and everything was all dark and fiery, and then you get a postcard addressed just to you with a snowflake on it or something. That'd be exactly the sort of thing an angel would do, wouldn't it?"

Nagato held his hands in his lap to keep them from reaching out and screwing everything up. "You'd know what angels do better than I would."

Yahiko tilted his head. "What do you mean by that?"

Nagato realized then what he'd said and turned away to hide his slight blush. How to fix this? "Oh, I, I didn't mean...I just meant that you, uh, actually that angels are, y'know, quite simple beings. They spend their whole lives in the good parts of the afterlife and never even get tempted by anything. They just know what's good and what's not, like they're made of goodness. I have been confused, doubted, stolen pieces of candy from my parents, wondered how I would perform the perfect murder if I had a reason to murder someone, stuff like that. I know that's all pretty normal, but it's only normal for people not angels. You just seem to be a lot simpler than I am, have an easier time knowing what things are, that's all. More angelic than me."

Yahiko relaxed at this. "Simplicity is overrated."

"Maybe, but there has to be a reason it's rated in the first place. There has to be _someone_ around who knows what they're doing."

"That makes sense." Yahiko paused. "Just, maybe, don't phrase it like calling me an angel. I don't get offended or anything, and it's not like I mind girly things, but I just can't help but think it sounds like flirting whenever I hear a guy talking about someone looking like an angel. I don't mind very much, it just feels kind of weird. That's okay, right?"

Nagato was almost as red as his hair by this point. "Yeah, um, I get it. That was an awkward way of putting it. I didn't mean that you look as beautiful as an angel or anything like that, it just came out wrong." _Is this lying? _"I didn't mean to sound like I was flirting with you or anything." _Oh suuuuuurrre I didn't. _"I won't say things like that again." _Why did I even say that in the first place?_

Yahiko waved his hand as if to deflect flies buzzing around his head. "It's okay. I didn't think anything like that, no awkwardness here." He then considered for a couple seconds. "Although, slipping in a phrase like that so easily could be a great skill if you were flirting. How do you not have a girlfriend?"

_Danger approaching in 3...2… _"How don't you?"

Yahiko's smile fell. "I...don't know. It just… Can we not talk about that?"

_Aaaaaahhhhh, much better. Oh man, I can't believe I just did that to him. Was that the only thing I could have said? _"Oh, sorry. Is it a big deal?"

Yahiko looked unhappy for the first time in a long while. Nagato wanted to smack himself for making his best friend feel like that, but now there was nothing he could do. He could only listen as Yahiko muttered in a low voice, "I'm not sure if it should be. I have no idea why romance should be important to me, I know I have a whole life of other things to be happy for, but yeah. It is a big deal. I'm sorry for being such a bummer." He twitched his lips into a smile again and said, with more cheer injected into his voice, "Well, that's enough moping for tonight. I just hope things are going better for you in that department!"

_**Kill me now.**_

Suddenly there was a tremendous noise from the bushes behind them. Both of them jumped. _Wait, no, I didn't mean that literally!_

The noise stopped just as they both turned to look around. Yahiko turned to look in the other direction just as Nagato's eyes focused on a moving shadow. He froze and said nothing as it swiftly came out from the path behind them that led into the woods. It seemed...human?

Yahiko turned around and his mouth fell open a little. The shadow entered the light as soon as it stepped out of the trees, and quickly resolved itself into the figure of a woman. Illuminated, she didn't look very different. The only changes the light made to her appearance were revealing the color of her hair and some cloud shapes on her otherwise shadowy black cloak, and making visible the flower in her hair. It also highlighted how pale she was on the very few patches of exposed skin they could see. There was silence as she stopped, still facing out in front of them. Yahiko thought - he couldn't be sure since there were other reasons for his heart to be pounding at the time, but he _thought_ \- she was kind of pretty.

Nagato turned again the same color as his hair, even as the voices of an angelic choir sung in his head. On the one hand, _She saved me! I have so many thanks to give, but none I can express, definitely not in front of him. How can I express my gratitude for this most timely intervention? _On the other hand, _Was that deliberate? Did she really know when to do that to help me? How long has she been listening to us? Please don't tell him please don't tell him please don't - _

His train of thought derailed on a dime as his eyes glanced over her hands while looking down. Her fingers were tensed. Not tensed and curled, ready for action, but tensed and uncurled as if to stop herself from reaching out, stop herself from showing too much. Some of that may have been projection. Nonetheless, concern bubbled up from its ever uncapped fountain, and Nagato looked up to see what he could of her face.

He could see almost nothing. Between her high collar and her posture, still facing away and not looking at them, nothing expressive was visible except the tilt of her head. She was looking down. Her shoulders seemed tense. Her breathing was very even and slow, too much so. None of this was of a very obvious nature, but Nagato knew well the attempt to avoid looking at someone out of pain. _Is she possibly like me?_

Her fingers relaxed. In a blink all these indications disappeared, forcibly dragged under the surface as if by an omnipresent Cthulhu or a living ocean. Her steps were perhaps a bit slow, but there was no obvious hesitation as she turned to face them. Only one thing remained, and that was the fact that she still refused to look at them. Without a direct view into them, Nagato could not read her eyes. He could not be completely sure there was anything in them to read. Yet just now he had seen…

"I have a completely ridiculous proposal for you two," she said, shooting the words out as if they might be poisonous. Nagato blinked then instinctively turned to Yahiko. Yahiko turned to him. After sharing some invisible communication that neither of them had the slightest clue what was going on, Nagato resolved to trust his instincts. He had seen what he had seen. That feeling of concern still remained. He turned back to face her and asked, "More completely ridiculous or less?"

Something changed in her expression, but neither of them could see what or even where in her expression it had happened. She made a direct movement, no distractions, under her cloak and retrieved a piece of paper. She handed it to Nagato. "I do not know, but regardless it is a group ridiculous proposal. Go there. Others are already waiting."

Nagato took the paper, glanced at it to see an address of some kind, and passed it to Yahiko without reading a letter. While the orange-haired sunbeam dedicated himself to studying it in greater detail, Nagato looked up at the lady. _What are we doing?_

He started when she looked back at him. He had not been hallucinating after all; there was pain in her eyes. In addition to pain, he could see a kind of distance in her eyes that reminded him only of loss. But then her eyes softened and became tinged with gentleness, just slightly. She mouthed words to him silently. His ears were convinced by his eyes that they heard _"You're welcome_" clear as day. Then with non-negligible effort her eyes jerked away, and the 3 seconds they had enjoyed together were over.

Yahiko looked up from the paper and handed it back. She took it, placed it right back under her cloak where it had come from, said "Thank you" at the exact same time as he opened his mouth to ask something, and turned away just a touch quicker than she had originally turned to them. She stood there for a fraction of a second, during which Nagato saw her hand flutter and fingers tense in response, then began to walk. With quick steps she returned to the darkness once more. Yahiko wondered if he'd only imagined seeing her fast walk become a run just before she disappeared. The night was quiet.

Nagato could still see the look in her eyes. He turned to Yahiko with a strength in his posture, no longer relaxed, and asked in a tone that was mild yet not to be argued against, "You got the address?"

"Uh...yeah."

"We're going."

Yahiko looked curious and felt bewildered. Not at the declaration, he was more than willing, but at the tone it was in. Nagato looked sure, a kind of surety from somewhere deep inside. Yahiko felt his eyes tearing up, and realized he was happy. It was good to have someone else with a strong direction. He understood much better what Nagato had meant. Just seeing this look in his friend's eye made him smile. Nagato smiled back and took Yahiko's hand, pulling him to his feet. With a tug he got them moving in the direction she had left.

Yahiko turned back and waved at the moths, fluttering up and down according to the currents of the liquid air, several of them having left at some point to pursue the ambrosiac scent. He smiled at them gently and said, "Bye! Have fun you guys."

Nagato squeezed his hand and tugged again, then let go. They walked forward into the darkness in harmony, Yahiko just behind.

**Konan**

_How could he be here? I thought whatever this is was too recent! What is it? What is it that is torturing me with these reminders of the people I've loved?!_

Yahiko had not been wrong; at the very edge of the fading light the feeling of his gaze had become too much to bear. She could only hope the light had not reflected off any of the tears currently escaping from her eyes. It was just so many things…

_What is this? Is it hell or is it heaven? Shouldn't I be glad he's here? He's just as I remember from so long ago. He's just as I perceived him then. It seems I am still human, after all. If I can help him remember, it can return. _She shook her head, tears still dripping down to the pavement. _No. The past can never return. Not even here, in this place. Even if he did remember, Nagato and I have changed too much. We'd be like a puzzle whose pieces have changed and no longer fit togeth - __**No! **_

_Just where the hell am I?!_

There was no answer. The emptiness of the night whispered to her in a language of more emptiness. It was almost tangible, and Konan felt herself evaporate, as if everything she was was leaving her and becoming nothing. Without realizing it, she suddenly found her head lolled to the side and her knees halfway sunk to the pavement. She gave in, and it was quiet. Her tears dried.

_Did Tobi make it happen? Did he make his world of illusions? _

The nothing felt so...something. Her senses told her she was being watched from every direction, including inside. Her skin crawled with senses nothing like sight, yet it was the only comparable sense. Her eyes still stung, even after the tears had stopped, and it crept down. The stinging crept down those same lines in her face it had crept up from, flashing into a stabbing feeling at the top of her spine as if she had been struck by lightning. Down it swept, flashing at each vertebra and reaching outward from her, into… The nothing? But how…? No time. It kept going, tracing every line of her being.

Joining the nothing and the pain came a curious feeling. It was heat. The lightning feeling of being stabbed flared, and took on the heat of the sun. Konan tried to scream, no longer attempted to stop herself. But then she discovered something infinitely worse, which was that she could not scream. In desperation she reached inside, trying to strangle whatever it was that was watching, but it turned out to be nothing. A flower burst open inside her much too abruptly, spraying lava everywhere. It touched petals to her skin, and that was when she recovered the ability to feel her skin again.

Konan's eyes flew open, and she saw a star. It was ordinary. It was the same star she'd just barely seen through her tears. She looked down. She was standing with spots of darkened pavement at her feet, leaning against a wall. Her face was covered with tears, which continued dripping. Her head was upright. She experimentally pronounced, "Huh," and realized her vocal cords were now working. Had they ever been not working? Was it a highly compressed hallucination?

No, of course not. That would fly in the face of the list of "Unspoken Things One Agrees To By Becoming A Ninja" that she'd begun composing sometime into her training with Jiraiya sensei. One of the entries on there was "ninjas give up the right to disbelieve anything." If something ridiculous existed or was rumored to exist, Konan had begun to figure out that it probably did exist around the time Jiraiya sensei had started teaching them how to walk on water. Nothing in her career since contradicted that, so it was actually quite weird that she would even consider dismissing it as a hallucination. She dismissed _that_ as a side effect of the general skepticism all ninjas were supposed to regard everything with.

_Then what? The reality of such an experience almost makes me feel the urge to scream again. An illusion perhaps?_

That was a lie. She knew it was one and still thought it, making it a double lie. The pain and everything else had felt so _real_, it could not be an illusion. And not all of the things she had felt were gone. Even now, she could feel a nothing in everything she touched, as if they were just illusions and the truly important material lay beneath, where she could not feel it. _Silence is deafening. _So true. It had somehow felt infinitely more real than anything materially existing she touched. She flinched at the mere thought of the I-word.

_Tobi could never think of anything like that. He could never handle it. No matter what he claims he's not real divinity. What the hell was - _

Her body temperature seemed to drop several degrees, and instead of think any more about anything she plucked the paper flower out of her hair. What reflex led her to do that could not be verified. Regardless, she stared at her flower. Normally its small paper petals were tightened around each other, as closed as it could be while still being a flower, but she continued to stare with open mouth. Each petal now was more open. Not much more, but somehow they didn't look like paper anymore. She could almost feel a readiness to spring out and finish their unfurling, the petals lengthening to their full length. Exposing the core. It was a very sinister flower. She shoved it back in place before it could scare her out of her wits for a real length of time.

_Please let me feel alone again. _The feeling of something looking at her from everywhere also remained, and passively did not fade. _Is this meant to be comforting? _The nothingness was exactly that, nothing, so she figured the answer was technically no.

_What the hell am I even doing, trying to argue with the universe? Or am I trying to argue with myself? Which is what?_

She no longer believed she was recognizable even to Nagato, who was only a few months gone. The tears began again, but a strange sense of comfort kept her upright. Her legs vaguely remembered the directions to Sasori, and without noticing she began to walk, stepping over her tears that were beginning to dry on the pavement.

**Sasori**

It was very dark. Too dark. It was probably a bad idea to be working this late. Fortunately, it was a Friday, so the next day would be perfectly available to catch up on sleep. Sasori was well aware that wasn't how sleep worked, and there would probably be some disturbance to his sleep schedule for the next few days, _if _he was able to successfully sleep in. Regardless, work was a good place to be.

He wondered at the convenience of his schedule. Was it lucky that he had superiors who would allow him to work this late, or was he just a "victim" of shady practices who just happened to be perfectly adapted to the demands? If so, should he bother protesting? In what fashion? With the next few twists, those questions settled down to the back of his mind, drifting to a neat orderly place. That place was "Maybe I'll think about that after I've earned enough money from this place to afford professional help." The idealists he knew would be disappointed, but some things were more important than standing against shady business practices.

A few more twists. Then a switch to a smaller, more precise tool. Get everything aligned correctly. Some delicate taps. A few not so delicate thumps with his hand to see how it sounded. It sounded good. Well, alright then. Sasori stood up and put his things away, slowly. The faint smell of oil lingered in the air. He didn't like that smell. Even so, this was a good place to be. A very nice, methodical place. Each tool went in its own space in his kit. He wished whatever it was Deidara was troubled by could be positioned so neatly.

Even after putting every wrench and screw away, he lingered. The oil smell surrounded him, the smell of a car's bleeding, dirty guts. He wondered if Deidara would understand this smell, suddenly realized that perhaps there could be a parallel between their experiences. Of course, it would probably be a bad idea to bring that up. It might make things worse. He should minimize his risks, mention it offhand on a good day. _*sigh* When did it become like this, me looking after and watching my step around a kid like him?_

Sasori figured the closest he had to an answer was the day Deidara had come back. But even then, he'd shrugged things off at first. There was no clear way to mark the time since. Somehow, he hadn't been paying attention. Somehow, he hadn't been marking the time as people trapped in unpleasant situations often do. Somehow, he still wasn't. It wouldn't have been correct to say he was trapped. He didn't see Dei all that often even now, wasn't like he lived with the kid. It would have been easy enough to just stop showing up, stop bringing him the occasional gift, stop making little things in his spare time for Dei to hang up. Easy enough in practice. In theory it was much harder. What else would he do in his spare time? It wasn't like there was anybody else to enjoy seeing him. _I wonder how Granny's doing…_

He decided to stop by and stay for a while tonight. To hell with proper sleep schedules. With quick, precise motions Sasori turned all around the smallish room he had to work in, switching off and shutting down machinery, putting things back in every drawer, and finally switching off the lights. As he did this last thing, his hand lingered over the last switch for a moment before switching it off. It stayed there afterwards, lingering on the dirty plastic cover for a few seconds before slowly dropping to his side. Sasori didn't understand this sudden hesitation, but he was well aware that everything had a cause, however remote. Therefore he must have perceived something which caused him to hesitate. He narrowed his eyes in the near-complete darkness to shut out the last little bit of light, and questioned himself. _Is this going to be bothersome? _Then he pictured in his mind's eye the well-practiced journey to the door and beyond, and heard a quiet sigh escape. The thought of beginning that journey met with resistance in his body and mind. _Seems this is going to be bothersome indeed. _

Steeling himself for whatever was set to interrupt his day, Sasori wondered why. People only needed to steel themselves for unpleasant things, usually. As unpleasant as the idea was, Sasori knew full well his days were overdue for some interruption. Sadly, logic could not override the lazy part of himself, so steeling continued to be necessary. He walked in his usual circuit through the darkness in no hurry, gathering his thin jacket, walking over to the desk in the back to collect his keys, finishing off his mug of coffee. It was almost Zen-like. Then he completed the circuit at the door, and, taking one last look through the darkness for reasons he could not have named, stepped outside.

The first breath of fresh air caused his throat to spasm in an effort to keep from gagging as the clean air reminded his nasal receptors of what air was supposed to smell like. Several quick exhales later, the vaporized oil particles were mostly cleared out of his system and he could enjoy the air without distraction. For some seconds, his eyes peered out at the darkness and unobtrusively scanned side to side, his expression never changing. Sasori saw nothing. Still he stood motionless, turning his head slowly and continuing to look around unhurriedly. He did this despite thinking the odds were low he would be able to see anything since he did not have any special night vision, and he was proven right. He saw nothing. The first sense to tell him anything new about his environment was his sense of smell, as soon as the wind changed to flow towards him from the side instead of his front. From somewhere in front and over to the right, he smelled something that did not belong anywhere near his workplace. The first thing he considered was that those two guys he sometimes saw in the park might have stopped by, but that was unlikely since they did not talk to him much and they did not seem to be the sort of people who would literally stand _in _the bushes, which was what a person would have to do for the scent of the park flowers to rub off on them. That ended up being the only thing he considered, since he had no other ideas. So he stared into the little light there was in that direction and waited.

After several slow, meditative breaths Sasori found something to focus his eyes on at last - a white thing that caught the little moonlight. He couldn't have said what it was, but from its position his eyes instinctively moved down to look at the rest of the shape he knew should be beneath it. Some white outlines appeared as if in thin air, cloud shapes surrounding patches that seemed just a smudge lighter. As the human shape before him stepped out from under the trees Sasori saw that this was because they were red and everything outside the patches black. His eyes naturally moved up to look at the shadowed face of the person before him. He saw nothing. He was not disturbed by this, because although he was facing into the moonlight he knew they must also be unable to see anything in his face. Public displays of emotion had never been his thing.

"Sasori," the person said, revealing themselves to be a woman.

Nothing he could control showed on his face as Sasori instantly settled into a defensive mood. He realized he was readying for her to say it just a split second before she spoke.

"I would like to offer something to you and Deidara."

Deidara… How much did she know? His eyes narrowed slightly, as much as he allowed them to. Something about this situation seemed off. What was it? He attempted to gain some control over the encounter. "What do you have to offer?"

She hesitated, as if unprepared. He would've expected her to approach with something planned, in these circumstances, at this time. He wasn't sure how to take her defiance of this. After only a moment she did speak, forcing him to reassess how prepared she was. "An opportunity. Something different. It will change a great many things for the both of you. I ask only that you listen."

"Who are you?"

"Someone who has been...subtracted from your lives, I suppose. But somehow you have not been from mine. I know you, in a fashion, and Deidara as well. I'm amazed to find him living on his own. I would not have expected him to fit in this world."

"Do you know where Deidara lives?"

"No. Out of respect, I shall leave up to you the decision to involve him or not. All I will say is that it would be better if you did bring him."

"Bring him?"

"Deidara's presence would make my goal more...complete. I've already asked others to listen to my request at a location not too far from here."

Just then Sasori realized what had bugged him about this encounter from the beginning. It was the way she stood. Looking at her, hearing her, it was quite obvious. Was she ex-military? Current military? Paramilitary? What did she intend to do with Deidara?

"Complete?"

"The others I ask you to meet are in the same position as you are. You do not know what the position is, and I'll explain if you decide to come. By 'you,' I mean you and Deidara. Although, I'm sure he is _very _aware that he is in an unnatural position. It would not be in his best interest to deny him the chance to find out what."

Sasori remained still and did not speak after she finished, his mind whirling. A feeling of unreality gripped him. The vague words, the mysterious woman offering answers to questions he didn't yet know he should be asking, military involvement… _I'm in a mystery novel. _He searched through everything he could think of to disprove that hypothesis. Nothing he could think of conclusively denied it. Only one thing caught his attention, and it didn't exactly promise to prove his world was real.

"How can anyone be subtracted from someone else's life? How do you know me, and I don't know you?" he whispered, dreading the answer already.

The woman seemed at a loss for words. She shook her head slowly. "That _is _the position you are in that I want to tell you about, Sasori. I have no idea why you don't know me. I would like to fix that if possible. As for how I know you, that's not exactly the right question. The right question is how I _still _know you." She seemed to want to say more, but ultimately settled for turning her palms up helplessly.

_Oh god I'm in a paranormal mystery novel. I hate those. _Actually, he hated mysteries in general. Everything always turned out to be so complicated that the chances of any non-fictional average Joe grasping it all seemed close to nil, just about everything would require a heroic sacrifice of their health or sanity, and reading one of those things always made him feel fascinated in a terribly uncomfortable way, like watching a slow-motion video of some helpless little insect wondering what was going on as a spider's strands wrapped it up slowly, leisurely, _completely._ To read a mystery was to have one's sense of reality slowly bent, scraped at, transmuted. To read a paranormal mystery was just to take a hammer to your sense of safety while you were at it.

Sasori remained silent as well, his hands slowly closing into fists. His face revealed nothing, but unbeknownst to him, the chakra he knew nothing about ran through a person's brain as well as body, connecting to their soul at several points. Because of this, it could be influenced by emotional states. Because chakra permeated all parts of the living and nonliving environment, this influence would in turn influence natural chakra flowing outside of a person's body, and if one was trained in the Sage Arts they could detect the influence of humans in the environment through this. Even if one was not trained in the Sage Arts, if it was strong enough a change in natural chakra could still be sensed as a vague feeling, like the feeling of being watched. His face showed nothing, but the aura in the air around him closed, folded, and rippled as if threatening to dissolve away entirely. Experienced jounin knew the aura of fear well, even more experienced negotiators and leaders knew the aura of resistance, and those worthy of the title of Kage, Daimyo, or any other commander of great masses of people knew exactly where one became the other. She froze immediately, changing nothing of what they were currently doing and eliciting as little of a reaction from him as possible. She'd practiced with the best.

The man she knew as the puppetmaster eyed her warily. She stayed still and took slow breaths to project an aura of competence, surety, and general reassuringness. Quickly, as quickly as one reflexively brings up an arm to shield oneself, Sasori darted a hand into his coat pocket and pulled out another of the little rectangles like the one Sakumo had checked the time with. The little bubble of light that appeared as it turned on and his own hurried tapping at it did much to isolate his aura, and Konan sensed it was now safe. She could no longer influence him. Whether or not that was a good thing… Just in case, she reached for the sheet of paper with the address and let it fall from her fingers, address up and landing in his field of vision, just to the side of the glowing rectangle. His eyes twitched to look at it before he pulled them back. Out of habit, she inclined her head toward him and departed swiftly and quietly. Left on his own, Sasori refocused and tapped out a few quick commands before bringing the phone to his ear and waiting for it to sound on the other end. It did so twice before he heard pained mumbling.

"Dammit, Sasori. Have you turned yourself into a machine or something? I have normal brains between my ears. They need sleeeeeeeep."

"Some things are more important than sleep. We have a thing. I repeat: _we have a thing._"

**A/N: In case anyone wonders, I read a whole fanfic - The Secret Songs of the Ninja, by Arcane Azmadi - in between the writing of the weird scene and Sasori's scene. That's probably why my writing changed a bit and, in my opinion, is better for Sasori's scene. It was a well-written fic, and things I consume tend to have an influence for a short time. Expect my writing next chapter to be at the same level of quality it usually is.**

**Now, to get back to the important things...**

**I'm only just barely involved in the fandom, so I haven't seen a lot, but what I have seen in a couple fanfics and An Akatsuki's Life (on Youtube) is people shipping Nagato and Konan together. I have not the slightest idea why. Yes, I get that people tend to ship just about any pairing even if they've never heard of each other in canon, so it's not surprising that some people would ship two characters who have such a close involvement in canon. But is that super common and I'm weird, or are there any other people who saw the same things in canon that I did? What I saw in canon was that Nagato explained during the Pain arc that his entire reason for everything was all about Yahiko. He ranked Yahiko's death right up there next to his parents', who you only have a limited number of during your life so someone must be pretty special to rank next to your parents. In addition, he flat-out said that this was his (warped) way of trying to follow and continue with Yahiko's goal of peace. It seemed like he didn't really continue to have his own life after Yahiko died, any more than Konan did. He was just trying to continue what Yahiko had been aiming for. Naruto and Sasuke set the upper limits for the friendship bond in the series, and at least Naruto continued to have his own life and bonds and some other dreams after Sasuke left. It's really like Nagato died when Yahiko did, and the only time I saw him in the present day behaving and expressing opinions like a separate, individual person was after he was brought back from the dead. Although that may have had something to do with his appearance returning to a healthy one. **

**So yeah, I've always figured from watching the show that Nagato was gay. What did everyone else see, aside from the fact that the characters exist, that leads them to ship him with Konan? Legitimately curious. And if the answer turns out to be "Kishimoto said...", I only follow the show, not Kishimoto, so I don't really care and also the Word of God I've heard attributed to him about Hidan's death seems like some very strong proof he can be wrong about his own story. Konan and Nagato are siblings as far this story is concerned. **

**And no, I'm not going to mess around with Yahiko's character just for the sake of a cute ship. There was no indication anywhere in the show that he could be at all attracted to men, so he's not. But there could be other ways to make a ship sail...**


	6. The Hammers Fall

**A/N: I came up with things in the reverse order of how Konan did, results before method before the very beginning. I love this one. Enjoy.  
**

**General**

Konan raced through the trees on her way out of town, moving quieter than seemed possible despite the fact that she ran along the ground. She'd kept them waiting long enough. Several times she was able to refocus for half a minute, perhaps a minute at most and remind herself that she had to give Sasori time. It occurred to her that it had been a very bad idea to save the one who would be most difficult to convince and likely require the most time for last. Well, too late for that now. If she could convince everyone else, that might do even if he wasn't there for tonight's show.

Speaking of...Much as she wanted to be gentle, Konan was well aware that she was aiming to destroy their whole idea of the world they thought they had always lived in. That could not be gentle, or it would fail. Only something concrete would do. Something as hard as concrete, as undeniable, as absolutely wrecking in its power. _I almost feel bad for them._

She turned left on the road that she knew had patchy yellow lines on it, though it was too dark to see them at night. The beginning had been planned all along by some part of her she didn't interfere with and readily came to her mind as soon as she called for it. However, nothing else was in place. A devastating blow...then what? What would she say? No. The question was not what she would say. She only meant to tell them the truth, after all. The question was: How would she say it? The ordering of the several things she had to tell them, the phrasing, how to respond to inevitable disbelief, all were the things she would need to know. Her heart beat faster as she neared the building. It seemed to beat only one word, a word she definitely did not want to hear. A plan could be restructured, even one for which there would be no second chance like this one. At the very least, if she had a plan and it failed she could look at the plan, see where it failed, and add it to her collection of experience. The word that she could not help thinking of required something else, a display of herself in her entirety. If it failed, her entire collection of experience and everything she was would fail as well. Her palms sweated. She dried them on her cloak as she slowed to a walk and tried to become more assured. Her heart continued beating away.

_Improv, improv, improv, improv._

Konan strained to keep her face flat as she opened the door.

The sound of laughter greeted her as she walked down the hall.

"Y'know, if they weren't all assholes, I'd call you a Disney Prince!" Hidan.

"I suppose you still could. It doesn't occur to me to think of actual princes from Disney. I thought of the meaning _you_ meant before that one. Does anyone agree?" Nagato.

"I did as well. But isn't it a little...undignified?" Kakuzu, with a hint of humor on the last word.

"I am _not _the guy equivalent of a Disney Princess!" Yahiko. She could almost hear the blush.

"A Disney Princess is a character type defined by having a strong relationship with animals, to the point of calming normally dangerous ones and being able to command smaller creatures. If you could figure out a way to command these moths, it wouldn't be anything to be embarrassed about." Itachi.

"Itachi's right, nothing useful can be embarrassing. Next time we meet a large dog, maybe see if you can calm it. That'd be useful and nothing to be embarrassed over, right?" Nagato again.

"The only thing worse than being called a princess is having you guys talking about my feelings! I don't need comforting!" Yahiko wasn't taking this well. Although she was only listening from outside the kitchen door, the conversation soothed Konan's nerves. Pulling off the ludicrous through 95% improvisation was a thing to be nervous about. Rescuing Yahiko from awkwardness? Perfectly natural, just as it had been for Nagato. She reached again down to that strange well of confidence, wincing as a memory came up of the momentary glance she'd gotten of the pain and nothingness hiding behind everything. Come to think of it, the strange burning confidence felt just like a lesser version of the burning pain. Well, that made sense… But she pushed her thoughts in that direction away. Consider later. Do now. It felt _good._

"Hey Konan's back!" Hidan yelled, before she'd moved a muscle.

_What the hell? How - _

Thankfully her legs were farther away from her ears than her brain was, so they initiated action unaffected by Hidan's exclamation. Konan walked into the room with the counters just in time to witness the strange break in between scenes where everyone rushed to take new places. Yahiko attempted to look nonchalant against the counters in the back. Nagato attempted to join him, but was held back by Hidan's arm slung around his shoulder. With a slight blush he elbowed Hidan in the ribs, causing him to finally realize that his arm was no longer welcome. Kakuzu and Kisame stood together in the near corner to her right, leaning against the wall and cabinets. They moved slightly apart, Kisame drifting closer to Itachi who was sitting on a cabinet as Hidan put on his best offended face and went to sulk next to Kakuzu. They and the gap left between Itachi and Nagato took up the back and right sides, so she moved to the left naturally and smoothly. This instinctive movement reminded her of scattering civilians. _They may have the memories of civilians, but they shouldn't have the instincts. Well, at least they may get along better than my old Akatsuki did. _

They looked at her, each with a different expression. She looked at each of them, wondering. Something was wrong. She considered briefly, then sent the nervous signal that would tell her mouth to open and begin. Just as the signal reached its destination, a sputtering noise from outside interrupted, and they all turned their eyes reflexively to look out the door she'd just come through. Konan almost started at the new sound. It was unlike anything she'd heard yet.

The rough sound continued as if something with a very deep voice was coughing very regularly, then stopped. Kisame's mouth dropped open. _What the hell did this lady promise him? _Itachi was suitably impressed. Kakuzu didn't know the owner of that ride, but he knew who usually came along and groaned inside. He'd been fine for a while, but now he was getting tired and _if that brat is loudmouthed tonight I might just choke him to death. Two's a crowd. _

The sound of two sets of footsteps echoed into the room. Neither set sounded quite right. The reason for that was obvious as Deidara came into view, followed by Sasori. Deidara's footfalls were a little uneven as he rubbed traces of sleepiness out of his eyes still, and he refused to let go of Sasori's arm, leaving his friend to correct his balance with just one. After taking another quick swipe, Deidara blinked to clear his eyes and looked around. Sasori now stood upright and informed Kisame and Itachi with a shake of his head and a motion of his hand that _not my idea. See this? I was dragged. Don't blame me for getting caught in this foolishness. _

Deidara locked eyes with the stiff-backed woman in front of him. She didn't look surprised that he and Sasori were here. The look in her eyes caused him to reflexively adjust his posture. He hadn't seen that look in its entirety for a long time. Deidara realized he was still holding Sasori's arm, and let go apologetically. In the flesh, she looked just like Sasori had described. Deidara didn't know whether to be at attention before her or relaxed. He settled for holding her gaze, even under the weight of her scrutiny. He tried to imitate the look of detached strength before him and failed, miserably. Perhaps he could have managed it before, but not now. Not so many months later. _Even then, you have to earn the power to look at someone like that, yeah? I still couldn't, hm._

Konan was surprised. She hadn't noticed before, but suddenly all the other Akatsuki members stood out in sharp relief. Of everyone she had seen, Deidara looked the most like the shinobi she was used to seeing. It had to be something in the way he stood, the way he looked. She did not turn her head to look back, but nonetheless could clearly see the others in her mind's eye. Relaxed. Wary. All kinds of things. But all the things they were, all the ways they had of doing things, all were summed up now in one word. _Civilian. _Or...perhaps...no, something else was true. She would have immediately seen that. Something else had obscured her vision. _Only mostly civilian, then. But how can that be possible? _

Deidara was the lone exception. She recognized his old self in him immediately. Several seconds had passed since he'd looked at her, so with an inner smile Konan broke off the connection and turned her head, implicitly ordering him to the space between Nagato and Itachi. Deidara proceeded without dithering, and after looking between them and wondering what had happened Sasori followed.

Konan realized at that moment, just before Sasori turned back to lean against a patch of wall, that it was sledgehammer time. Upon turning back, Sasori froze like everyone else already had at the smile she now had on her face. That was not a polite smile. She locked eyes with him. They sparkled maliciously. She locked eyes with Deidara. He wondered just how many people she'd sent off to die before. She locked eyes with Hidan. He swooned.

Then she raised her hands.

Her outer garments exploded, and from them flew paper.

The rippling sound briefly reminded some of a crashing wave. Crash it did, sheets of paper flying everywhere around them. A small burst of wind ruffled hair on everyone's head as the sheets of razor-sharp white blinded and surrounded them, forming into a paper blizzard. It was impossible to see where a sheet ended and another began, their borders folded together and blurred with motion. They simply swarmed, their edges making a terrific rustling that blotted out any other sounds there may have been, trapping them far away from the world.

No one knew how long this continued before one by one they began to notice a steadily rising noise against the background slicing of the air. It was rhythmic, gentler, the sound of paper against paper. One by one butterflies rose into the air, each rising like a mirage before darting suddenly in to their victims. This dart stopped at the last second, and they flapped slowly and leisurely upward again. Some of them accidentally looked at a downward angle during their mindless twisting and saw that much of the seemingly endless paper had settled to the floor and was folding itself in a synchronized rhythm. The blizzard became more complicated in its motion as each sheet of paper was reincarnated with surprising speed into a butterfly that rose to flap its wings in motion around the room.

Yahiko was the first to truly take the blow, when a butterfly fluttered softly out of the fracas like a dream. It danced before his uncomprehending gaze before slowly, softly, just barely touching the centerfold of its butterfly body to his nose. His mouth began to work up and down soundlessly, calling in other butterflies to brush their wings against him. By the feel of it several settled in his hair. The first one to brush his ear made him blink and make a sound. It was an incoherent squeak.

Hidan was much more coherent when one of the butterflies in front of him made a sudden jerk in just the right way. In a flash his hand lashed out and batted it from the air. It did not fall, but before it could rejoin the swirling chaos it was snatched and held in a lose grip of his fingers. Operating on instinct, he brought it to his face and sniffed it.

The blizzard closed in, the butterflies tightening their flight paths until it was impossible not to crash. Crash they did, bouncing off the outer garments, hair, and skin of the people standing in shock until they too began to reach out and interact. As they reached, each and every butterfly was suddenly pulled away from them and drawn up toward the ceiling 'til all the blizzard was gathered under the gray tiles. With various exclamations (and one gleeful giggle) all noticed Konan was no longer there in the same space of a moment and a half. Then the blizzard came back down, flooding the room again, except in the few moments they had looked elsewhere each butterfly had unfolded into a plain sheet of paper, not a crease to be seen on any one of them. A whirling cyclone descended then inverted itself, forming into an upside-down funnel wider at the base than at the top with the base several feet off the floor. The paper either ceased to exist or changed color, no one could be sure, until a black shape with red clouds on it appeared in the air. The last few sheets of paper completed the shape by splitting into two streams and being absorbed through the back, briefly creating the illusion of wings being reabsorbed. Then the fluttering sound stopped entirely, and only Konan was left. She hovered in the air, her hands still raised and put together in that sign they had seen before, and gently came back down. Her eyes looked down on them and did not move from their faces. As she spread her legs somewhat and landed gently, her cloak billowed around her. The air was greatly changed.

Nobody moved. Hidan threatened to fall down under the force of everyone else's not moving. Some of them moved their mouths, but could not yet say anything. What could be said, after all those ghostly little jarring impacts?

Konan smiled sweetly, and undid the seal. A few of them noticed the change in the air around her, but were unable to put a name to what they felt. They'd learn soon enough. Folding her arms across her chest, the kunoichi stepped forward. Some of them flinched back.

"That was unreal," she said, taking the words right out of their minds. "Impossible. It cannot happen in this world. I do not deny it, that was. I broke the rules of this world. But," she smiled, and her eyes flared with triumph, "I did not obey the rules of this world in the first place. How could I? It is not my world."

She swept her arm out to indicate everything. "None of this, not a single particle, belongs to the world I belong to. I am here not of my own decision or will, but because I have died, and whatever may be in charge of our worlds has declared this to be my next one. The world I am from has very different rules. By its rules, I am not unique, and this is perfectly real.

"The technique i just used was a form of ninjutsu, created by manipulating the chakra inside my body in a specific way, aided by hand seals. That basic principle is common, absurdly so. Unless one has a very rare defect that prevents them from manipulating their chakra, anyone could use hand seals to perform jutsus if they had the chakra and training. That paper jutsu is mine, and mine alone. But there are many others, too many to list the names of even in a very thick book. That's where all of you come in."

She swept her gaze across the pale, enraptured faces of the men gathered before her. "Have any of you come to wonder over the past few months why it is that everything in you seems unreal? Why somehow, for no reason you can remember, you are fundamentally misaligned with the world around you? Why you have never felt so misaligned before? You may have come up with any number of incorrect ideas, failed to come up with anything at all, or perhaps stumbled upon the correct reason but dismissed it. Regardless, the truth is the same.

"Just as I am not a person of this world, neither are you."

She paused for a moment to let the impact wash over them. Oddly enough, most of them showed no reaction beyond some very subtle changes in the way they looked at her. Sasori looked about to say something, but Deidara's hands involuntarily began to clench within his field of view, so he said nothing. Nagato looked as if he was going to be the first to recover his wits, so Konan moved on.

"The memories you have of always having belonged here, always having been a person belonging to this world, those are false memories. In reality, the past months you have spent in bewilderment are the only months you have spent in this world. In reality…" Something led her to pause for a moment there. She tried to continue speaking, but gave up on that effort as useless in a split second. Something was wrong. _Something is quite wrong. What is it? What is it that has… _Her gaze landed on Sasori, and she clearly saw him for the first time. Under the dim moonlight, she couldn't have been sure. Before, there had been Deidara to look at. But now -

The changes to his face were definitely there, not a trick of the moonlight. Eyes a little smaller in proportion, mouth a little bigger, not so round. His hairline was a little higher. He was as tall as Deidara. A dozen little adjustments, adding up to -

_Changed. There is change. Difference. _Her tongue was released. Thanks to the speed at which a trained strategy-planning nin thought, it sounded as if she'd merely paused for effect when she continued, "...those months are the only months you have spent in existence. I died. Now I am here. I remember. I know all of you. All of you come from the people I knew and worked with, until each of your original selves died. Sasori was first. Kisame, I had not even heard the news of. He must have been most recent."

Only force of habit kept her going with the same tone of voice and same facial expression as before. "Yet there seems to be some inheritance. It is possible to detect subtle changes in chakra with enough training. I detected such changes from Sasori earlier, which proves that he does have chakra and should be able to use jutsu, even if that is not in accordance with the rules of this world. Some of you have physical features that alone prove this world's rules no longer apply. Each of your personalities is recognizable, even if only on a basic level. Each of your originals had their own unique abilities, techniques they were very skilled in. Those too may have been inherited."

That last sentence had almost broken her force of habit, revealed her shock. She could not be certain that assertion was true. If there had been more than one such sentence trickling up to her throat, it might have spelled disaster. "We were an organization. The Akatsuki. Perhaps, to find out what has happened, we could be again."

The room was dead silent. The stream of words was gone. Konan continued to stare into their faces, but saw nothing. Her own horror fogged her vision. They stared back, their own horror fogging their vision. It was as if a jutsu had been cast to sever the connection between their senses and their mind, rendering almost everyone in the room insensate.

There was only one person in the room who was not so crippled, who still had a working sense. Even though this sense detected nothing more than horror and shock, its detection of anything spurred the rest of the mind to activity. Sluggishly, the brain churned out a thought. _Everyone feels the same. There is no feeling of not being...like this. So...she…?_

This thought did more to wake him up than an intravenous line of caffeine. His eyes focused and recognized that her eyes looked kinda withdrawn. Then his eyes glazed over again, because the jolt passed quickly and everyone was kinda withdrawn. Fighting against the paralytics creeping down the line and directly into the wiring of his brain, he managed one last thing. "Uh…"

Everyone twitched when the silence was broken. Konan's lower workings of her brain started quickly enough to suppress it, and she hurriedly searched for something to say. "Ninjas." Swallowing, she continued. "People who can use ninjutsu and keep themselves and others alive in battle are called ninjas. The more formal title is shinobi. A female shinobi is called a kunoichi. The military forces of ou- my world are composed of shinobi. As are the truly high-class mercenaries." She shut her mouth before she could say which one they had been. _The people I knew wouldn't care. But these...they...who are they?_

Sasori was chalk white and struggling to keep from laughing. _Oh god oh sweet baby jesus I said it was a paranormal mystery novel holy crap was I too close to normal this is more like - like - _The urge to laugh subsided as he fell into the serious business of determining exactly which genre they were in.

Deidara found himself sucking his thumbs nervously. That was actually quite painful considering the thumb was never supposed to bend that far into the palm. He stopped, flexed his thumbs experimentally - _Ow! How long have I been doing this for? ...Probably ever since she said that thing, actually. Never mind. - _and started sucking on his first two fingers on each hand just to ensure his thumbs wouldn't be disabled if this lady had anything **more** to say.

Kakuzu shook his head slightly, and threw up some emergency denial. _What the _fuck _is this stranger saying? That I've only been alive for a few months? That we're all not real people? How the hell could she know anything of the sort? _Kakuzu was not alone in thinking this. Kisame was thinking and doing the exact same thing, Nagato and Yahiko felt _certain _that they had to be real, how could Jiraiya or their parents' deaths or any of that not be real, and Itachi was bluescreened at the thought that he was dead.

Hidan raised his hand. "Hey, goddess-lady?"

Her defenses lapsed, Konan replied impulsively, "The people of the Rain Village called me their Angel, actually. What is it?"

Hidan remembered the paper wings he'd briefly imagined and filed that away for later. "Are you saying we're all ninjas with magic powers?"

Her memory twanged like an overstretched rubber band as Konan remembered her original plan that she'd walked in here planning to get them to agree to. It hurt. _I really have no idea what I'm doing. I didn't even figure out...until… "_Yes."

Hidan contemplated for a few seconds, then paused his contemplation. Closing his eyes firmly, he reached inside and allowed everything to vanish, losing focus until the feelings disappeared somewhere. _Ah. Much better. _Although it disrupted his ability to think and remember, he continued to allow himself to be capable of this. Then he resumed contemplating.

If he'd been an analytic type, it wouldn't have taken any contemplating time at all since he really didn't have much to think about. "Any requirements to join?"

Everyone in the room, formerly engrossed in their individual reactions to Konan's information, now turned to look at him. Their reactions varied through several shades of disbelief, wonder, pity, and a bunch of other things. Many, especially those who had throw up some emergency denial as cover, became angry as they remembered Konan's proposal. _What does she think she's asking, and who does she think she is to demand it?! _Even so, they waited for an answer.

Konan was the only one in the room to not react very much to Hidan's question. She looked at him with her flat face on, not feeling anything that Hidan could detect, and replied. "Requirements?"

"Yeah, um...do we get a group uniform or anything?"

There was no change in Konan, although she did make an effort to move her face more as she spoke. "What do you think I'm wearing?"

_*GASP*_! Hidan's mouth fell open as he vividly pictured himself wearing a cloak similar to the one she wore. _SO BADASS. I would look so good in that. __**I would sell my soul for this opportunity.**_Without even needing to think about it, he followed up with "Any special gear?"

At this a ripple of pain passed through her, and her flat face turned translucent, allowing some feeling to show through. With a look of sadness that reminded Nagato of why he and Yahiko had come, she spoke slowly. "You - your original had a special weapon, yes. As did Kisame. Your original wielded a scythe as tall or taller than himself, with 3 red blades. Kisame's used a special sword called the Samehada. Samehada was alive, cut enemies with large razor-sharp scales, and ate chakra. Nobody else used any unique weapons as far as I know."

The emergency shield of denial fractured into a glass mist instantly as Kisame froze. _Samehada? How...how does this lady know about Samehada? W-wait. Samehada's not a sword! But...she knows Samehada's alive. Eats chakra. _Kisame's right arm remembered the feeling of tooth marks in it. Fish...shredded. Never eaten. _Oh my god. She's - _His vision swam before him, rearranging itself into a scene crystal clear yet unfamiliar. _She's telling the truth._

Hidan made a series of warbling chirping/squeaking/squealing noises that rose up and down a full scale, conveying joy. He could not help bobbing his entire body up and down and shaking his fists held tightly in front of him as he did so. The pain lifted from Konan as she watched him, no longer reminded of his own original but of another, completely different man that she did not feel bad about in the slightest. _That's so Tobi-ish. _He settled and, still giggling, turned to Kakuzu with eyes wide open and lit up like a bonfire. "Waste of money my ass! Even if I didn't love that thing, it's still...gah, I don't fucking know. In your face! I get a badass cloak and the coolest weapon that's ever existed! Is this or is this not the _greatest thing __**ever!**_"

Kakuzu stared at him in angry bafflement. "You...you're going to do this. You're going to spend time with the disturbed lunatic who says we're all dead and everything we know is part of a _multidimensional conspiracy to do who knows fucking what _just so you can get the chance to play ninja, pretend you can do magic, and dress up." He looked _very _pissed, and everyone in the room wondered if this was what Konan had been talking about when she said they could detect chakra disturbance. His voice continued rising in volume and lowering in pitch as he went on. "All this just because you _like _the look of obvious insanity and apparently have a death wish." By now Kakuzu's voice had deepened too much for him to sustain any volume, so the next growl was little more than a whisper. "You, Hidan, are the largest idiot I have ever had the misfortune of meeting."

Hidan looked at him quizzically, scratching his head. Once again he could have been overwhelmed by it, his own feelings drowned in Kakuzu's anger. Fortunately, his own joy was great enough to counteract it. "Kakuzu…" He found a very nice spot near his ear to scratch at and did so until sufficiently poetic words flowed out. "And the fortune too, right?" Kakuzu narrowed his eyes and glared.

Hidan grinned like a sunrise, a surprisingly sweet sight that he'd literally never presented to the world before. Kakuzu was surprised out of his anger for just a moment. A moment was all that Hidan needed. "You wouldn't want to be bored, would ya? You wouldn't want to be only partial, would ya? You are, Kakuzu. You're partial. You'd never do anything except beat people at gambling, get angry sometimes, and sit there with your money if I wasn't around. That's still most of what you do even with me around, except since I am around, you can take occasional breaks from being just that shit." A light flashed somewhere. His smile dropped into a questioning look. "Huh. I wonder if, maybe, Other-you was more complete, or at least if there's reasons why you don't do very much. I mean...why're you...fuck, what the hell are you, anyway? If we're supposed to be ninjas, and we've got all these ninja things, and we don't do anything with them, then...then, if these ninja things are us, or parts of us I mean, then we're...uh...partial! Because, y'know, those things are just gathering dust somewhere and they're missing."

Hidan had started scratching as soon as the words ran out, but no more were coming. He looked around for inspiration. His eyes settled on Konan. "I mean, just look at her! A lot of weirdness, yeah. But I bet she knows where the weirdness came from, and what the fuck it does, and what she can use it for. You don't know any of that shit. What good are your stitches? Where did they come from? What are you really able to do? Where did you, your money fetish and stitches and like everything else, where'd you come from? I'd like to know. Not you, I wouldn't be able to know where _you _came from. Me. Like where'd my scythe come from, and all that shit?" Hidan looked hopefully in Konan's direction. "I wonder if I could maybe hang out with me someday. Would he be cool? Would we be different? How much have I been doing by myself in the past months, anyway? Wait...aw shit, I confused myself. What's going on?"

While Hidan tried to piece together the tracks of his train of thought (which was a hopeless effort; many of them had been stolen even before the explosion, and the most recent disappeared down a yawning canyon), everyone else except Konan felt a little *_ping* _inside. At what part, none could have said. Konan felt several parts of her freeze back over as she tried to answer the question. _If you could...of course. Of course you would. I'm sure that a dedicated, loyal predator would be very cool. _All at once the urge to just get everyone else **away** sprang up, against which she was powerless. Her hands tightened into fists. A direct line was established to her eyes, which flared. "I will be in the front lobby." Any questions the others may have started to come up with were silenced at the scorching brand in her eyes. The air turned razor sharp and everyone was suddenly afraid to move. It returned to normal within the space of a second as she left, almost too quickly to track with the naked eye.

Hidan abandoned his efforts and put his priorities back in order. In accordance with them, he raced out of the room not 2 seconds after her but turned in the opposite direction. Having explored the building thoroughly earlier, he raced to a room with a large enough window, opened it, jumped out, and took off into the woods. All this in just over 5 seconds.

Yahiko and Nagato shared a look. _She doesn't look like she likes this any more than we do. _With a sympathetic look on Yahiko's face at the thought of her situation and a nod from Nagato, they understood what they had to do.

Deidara snuck a look at the palms of his hands. _How much of me does she understand? Maybe she can tell me about these too, huh. Sasori didn't tell me anything else, just that she looked ex-military, yeah. I never actually let him say anything else. Who the hell cares? It's Christmas, yeah! March 20th, actually, but Christmas anyway! _

Sasori had not the slightest idea what genre he was in. He decided to give up on finding out and just go with what he wanted to do. _What do I want to do? _He turned to his right and saw Deidara beginning to smile and looking at his hands, which were smiling too. _Oh. Of course. _There was no choice to make after that.

Itachi had often wondered about himself. _Who and what am I? Where do I belong? _There was no choice to make.

Kisame was still frozen. _She was right about Samehada. Everything she said...wait, no. Classic fallacy. Just because she was right about Samehada doesn't mean she's right about everything else. Even so… _The curiosity that had inspired him to stay in the first place sparked again. _How much else _is _she right about?_

Kakuzu didn't have any idea what to think. _Damn you, Hidan. _More than anything else, he felt uncomfortable. Everything seemed to make perfect sense in his memory. All of it was internally consistent. And yet, when each part of it was tied to the present it fell apart somehow. Like Hidan had pointed out earlier, the cause he remembered for his stitches didn't hold up compared to their current appearance. A lot of things didn't. Almost everything, actually. Everything suddenly seemed uncomfortable, not suited to him. _I didn't need to hear anything she said. I didn't want to. Why did I even agree to this? _

The answer was quite simple. He'd agreed because Hidan had made him agree, because the little dipshit needed _someone _to look out for him. Stupid kid was going to get himself killed with a smile on his face before too much longer. Kakuzu had no idea how he'd even ended up in this position. He'd never made a decision to look after the kid beyond the first couple days. Yet somehow Hidan just kept showing up, forcing him into new and uncomfortable situations. Situations that Kakuzu refused to even think about, lest he inadvertently admit he enjoyed them. Without making a decision, a decision was made.

Yahiko and Nagato went first. As they entered the lobby, Konan was sitting on the front desk staring out into the darkness beyond the large windows. Nagato wondered what she was keeping watch for. They stopped beside her, both struggling to think of what to say. They'd thought whatever had been bothering her earlier could be helped by their efforts, but…

With a low ironlike voice, she interrupted their considerations. "Nagato, Yahiko. Your originals specialized in jutsu, Nagato's in an impossibly wide variety, Yahiko in water style. I knew their techniques well. It would not be difficult to show you, if…" Her posture softened, and both of them saw that she seemed to want them to join her. They shared a look. Yahiko was willing to do anything to help, and he didn't mind making friends along the way. It occurred to Nagato that this was the golden opportunity he had been looking for, handed to him on a silver platter. A way to stay near Yahiko as he wanted yet also forge other connections, distance himself as he also wanted. They turned back.

"So...see you, uh, here? Will this be our place if anyone else joins?" Yahiko asked.

Konan considered. Eventually she said, cautiously, "I'm not sure what you mean by 'our place'. Of course you will be fully allowed to continue whatever lives you have, outside of the Akatsuki."

"Yeah, but we'd need facilities, right? Someplace to keep our ninja stuff, a training room, somewhere to meet. A group should be together, or it's not much of one. I guess here's a good place."

He had a point. No such accommodations had been necessary before because all Akatsuki members were already elite ninjas by the time they joined, but these ones would all have to train together. She would not have to, of course. Not in the same way. Konan continued to studiously stare outside, away from them as she replied, "Sound reasoning. I'll mention it to anyone else who comes out this way."

The pair looked back at each other, unsure, before deciding the best course of action was to leave. As they walked out to their car, Nagato started to turn the possibilities over in his head. He wouldn't have described anyone else in that room as bad-looking, exactly… Few of them were even kind of feminine looking, though, so that did limit his options, and that's if anyone was available… Yahiko asked what he was smiling about as they faced each over the car's roof. Nagato passed it off as just realizing how powerful Konan had implied his original to be. He continued to smile in secret all the way back.

Sasori got impatient after a couple minutes and asked Deidara, "Are you going to stand here or are we gonna get moving?" Deidara broke out into a grin and rushed from the room, trusting Sasori to come of his own accord this time. By the time he was within earshot, Deidara was already showing his palms to Konan (he never did that to _anybody, _not even Sasori) and asking about them. Konan replied that she had no idea where those came from, but they were not completely unique in her world and barely out of the ordinary in the Akatsuki. Deidara pulled his hands back with an excited grin that turned into a pained look of indecision as he tried to ask what he so strongly wanted to ask but couldn't figure out how. Sasori put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him away, murmuring gently, "Bug her later, brat." Neither noticed the grimace that crossed Konan's face before she explained to them Yahiko's reasons for taking this building as a base of operations.

Itachi and Kisame watched the door swing shut before making their presences known. Tacitly, they agreed to not talk about their current activity until such time as it seemed normal. Konan made a comment about Itachi's eyes suggesting he should investigate them sometime, and asked Kisame if he did have Samehada in this world. Kisame didn't want to give her too much information yet, so he only replied "...yes." She made sure to mention he could bring Samehada whenever he felt comfortable doing so, which was very courteous. Kisame allowed her to see his back fully turned as he left, wondering about how his first experience living with people not his parents would turn out. He wouldn't have agreed if not for having seen that there were enough rooms for everyone to sleep alone.

Finally, Kakuzu emerged. He just stared at her, narrowed his eyes, grumbled and shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he was getting into. With a sigh, he asked her to _please _make sure Hidan didn't get any caffeine or sugar. She sensed he was not in the mood to hear her speak any more, so she didn't.

With everyone gone, the building was quiet. She wondered if Nagato and Yahiko felt this quiet, across the uncrossable space.

**A/N: Next chapter: comfort. **

**I originally thought it would be Deidara, but sometime before I started publishing it was made clear in the show that his mechanical eye was not an actual mechanical eye but more like something he wore over it, I think (?) I'm still not completely sure what the deal is with that. Either way, it was easier to use Sasori instead. **

**I've thought some more over the last week about Hidan's characterization. I'm aware he was not quite like this in the original show. There's an excuse for that! A hint or two of it was in this chapter. His characterization, more than anything else, has seriously changed over the course of my imagining this story. Originally he was supposed to be much more mature and like a responsible authority figure to everyone else. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this version of him in later chapters. It just happened. I also came up with a solution, for any readers who don't like his airheadedness. It's going to take a very very long time to implement if all happens the way I think it will. **

**So... Is Hidan a housecat? How well is Konan taking the realization? De heck is going on with stuff? Can I successfully keep the vampires away for a while longer? Find out next chapter!**


	7. Comfort

**A/N: As promised, comfort. And some other things, naturally. It seems things are heading in a more angsty direction sooner than I had thought they would.  
**

**Konan**

She continued to sit there on the desk for some time after everyone had left. The lobby was dark; only her flower shone in the faint moonlight. It felt better to sit there unseen while she wondered what to do.

_Why am I here? _The question was unavoidable. There was physical evidence that the ninjas she knew were not actually the ninjas she had known. So why was she there? Konan saw, in her mind's eye, another woman, like herself but not the same person, laughing with the strangers that called themselves Nagato and Yahiko as she had done in another world. That woman could have been perfectly happy with them, they could have all been complete. That woman would not have her terrible memories, would belong here. A terrible thought occurred to her. _I exist, and she doesn't. Did I do something to keep another me from existing, to keep them from having her in their lives? Is it my fault somehow that Nagato doesn't have a sister, and Yahiko's still probably single? Did I do something to steal a chance at a second life for myself when I didn't deserve it? Would they have been happier with a me that fit with them? _If what she had seen of Nagato's interactions with Yahiko before was any indication, the answer was yes. Perhaps there was a reason she had been saved back then. Actually seeing them alone together, just her two lifelong companions without her, seemed unbalanced. _If I wasn't here, they could have had a suitable me to balance them. _Konan wondered how the afterlife was, if there was any need for balance in heaven. _Do my Nagato and Yahiko miss me? Did I do something to run away from them? Are they angry or disappointed?_

Konan shook her head, trying to dispel these thoughts. _No. It's no use to think of what might have been. If I'm to prove competent enough to lead a new Akatsuki, I must look to the future, to what is and could be. So, there must be a reason I exist. Something that is here only because I am, that nothing and no one else could do. Was I brought over to this world with the intention that I would form a new Akatsuki? Is that my reason for existing? _The idea was absurd. _How could anything with the capacity to do this possibly care about something so small as a few humans? No...perhaps it's more general than that. A subject of one world, in another. The yin in the yang. A bridge. _Her death flashed before her eyes. _Do I exist because of what I promised Tobi, that I would be that bridge?_

A decision appeared. _To accept, or not to accept? _Half of it was missing a leg to stand on, so it fell over and disappeared. _There's no reason not to accept that as my reason for being here. I suppose they would have just reinvented the techniques of my world anyway. It is so, then. I am here to bridge the gap between my world and this one. I know that I am, because...because I decided I was. Who's going to tell me otherwise? Not anyone I'd know well enough to listen to. _Her fingers tightened and she hissed at the casual reference to the fact that **everyone she knew and loved or at least cared about in the slightest was dead. **Even Hidan. _Especially _Hidan. Before she even knew it Konan had thrown herself off her perch and was moving at quick speed down the hallways of the building.

Her legs propelled themselves, and the mechanisms of her mind swung away from everything she'd just been thinking about. It was a common reflex hammered into every ninja during missions. She immediately classified this as a reconnaissance mission and focused all her attention on the task of learning more about the building.

First: the layout. The front lobby and its side rooms took up the entire front of the lower floor, and had two hallways leading from it on either side parallel to each other. The hallway they'd all used to access the kitchen through the propped-open door was the hallway to the right, as one faced into the lobby from the front door. Konan moved down that hallway quickly, turned into the kitchen, crossed it, went through the other door way, found herself in an adjoining room with nothing in it except a power outlet low to the floor on the left, turned right through a snugly fitted set of doors to exit that room, and found herself in a hallway. Turning to her right, she walked around the corner and found the kitchen's doorway. She turned back and crossed the hallway entirely, turning left when it ended, and the lobby reappeared. So, the lobby and the cross hallway appeared to form a rectangle, with the kitchen and small room going through the intervening space. On each side of this rectangle she'd seen one room, seemingly not used for guests. The guest rooms were probably the ones beginning at the two far corners of the rectangle and continuing down the building. She went back down the left hallway, noting several rooms on this side. It was long and ended abruptly, turning right into another cross hallway. In the middle of this one stood a set of stairs, and behind the stairs a back door leading onto a small stoop covered with bird poop. She continued through the cross hallway until reaching the other side, which had instead of a room at the very end a sunken stairway leading down to the left.

Konan was intrigued and descended, finding a small door at the bottom in the left side of the wall. She opened it to discover a large open space. The ceiling was low, but the area was vast and obviously took up the entire space underneath the cross hallway. The floor was metal. Konan dismissed the obvious thought immediately. The room had probably been used for storage once and could be used as such again. There was no reason to have to torture anyone in this world anyway. Well, as far as she knew there wasn't, not yet. It would be _really easy _to clean in a pinch. Being right beneath the rest of the building would pose a problem, but as she looked around the soundproofing possibilities began to appear before her eyes. Konan shook her head, cleared these thoughts away for later, and returned to the ground floor. Again she traced her steps in the direction of the front of the building.

It seemed to appear after only a few steps in that direction. Every other room had been neatly closed or at most just open enough to peek into. This one was wide open, which Konan saw as she approached by the amount of light spilling into the hallway from it. This amount wavered a little as the door moved back and forth in the air movements coming from the open window. Konan stopped, looked and listened all around, sensing nothing. There was nothing outside the window but the forest. The forest… She recalled Hidan racing out of the room just behind her, turning in this direction. She moved inside and reached out for the window. Just before she could, it occurred to her to wonder why she would close the window. Her hand tightened around the window's handle, prepared to pull it down at the slightest sound of movement. Again she wondered why. He did not pose a threat to her. _My Hidan wouldn't. But who is this guy? _Even so...she could not really believe he was any danger to her rational self. _I couldn't tell any difference before. _She left, leaving the window gaping open behind her.

This hallway led back to the kitchen door and the lobby, as expected. A giant rectangle with a line splitting it in two across the middle. There was an upper floor, but the reconaissance mission was over. She wandered into the kitchen and sat on top of the little counters, spent. Today had been too full. She felt almost as drained as she had after Yahiko died, but a different kind of drained. That had been overbearing loss. This was every kind of feeling mixed together. The happiness, the sadness, the sudden loss. It only made her slightly nauseous to wonder whether it really mattered that they weren't the people she knew, as long as they worked well enough as replacements. Of course it was obvious the answer was yes, but she turned it over in her head slowly anyway. Konan knew in a detached kind of way that she would wake up in the morning in hell.

Some slight disgust passed through her as she felt herself shrink away from the thought of seeing them again. What the hell was that about? Yes, it hurt to think of them, especially the ones that looked just like her two most treasured people in the entire world. But she was a warrior. She'd seen Yahiko die once already, how could seeing him alive possibly feel so bad that she'd shrink away from it? Actually, nothing about what she felt upon seeing him alive made any sense. Even before, when she'd thought he was her Yahiko, it had felt bad. Konan thought about the scene at the park. She hadn't been able to look at him. Even now...she tried to picture his face, and couldn't. Her mind flinched away from that image. With a sinking heart, she realized she could not look at him and would not be able to do so anytime soon. Why? She loved him. It didn't make any sense.

She considered her options. Even if she in no way had the energy to sort out her feelings tonight, her first instinct was to come up with a plan to do so. No matter what she felt, it was her duty as a shinobi to do what she'd promised and train them. She couldn't do that without looking at them. The thought of being in such close quarters, training together again, made her twitch. Konan groaned under her breath. _I can't do this. I'm trying to make a plan to solve a problem that is itself disrupting my ability to plan and, I suspect, is immune to rational thought. I can't do this. I don't have the slightest clue how. _Yes, she was aware such thinking would lower her chances further. No, she didn't give two damns about that at this time. Frustration seethed under her skin.

While the burst of angry motivation was just starting to make its way through her arteries, the moon continued to shine softly on the forest, bathing everything in its silver glow. The winds moved slowly, almost wrapping themselves around the living things in the woods like a hug. Hidan raced along, moving as silently as he could, surging through the night. He did not have the breath to waste purring, but he was certainly in the mood for doing so. Some funny thoughts were racing through his head, but funny in a kind of good way. Home. Family. Maybe...the future? Hidan wondered if he'd ever had any of those things. Of course he must've had a home and family at some point. As he ran alongside the wall and carefully oriented himself so the blades on his back wouldn't catch the side of the window, Hidan wondered if his parents looked like him and would recognize him if they could see him now.

Easily, he hopped into the air, twisted just the right amount, and threw his arms under and behind him to propel himself forward. That part was easy. The hard part was the landing. Certain muscles pushed as he crossed through the window to swing his body to the side. As his body failed to turn enough, Hidan panicked and pulled his legs forward just in time to land on the very front of his feet and continue falling forward. His arms were more accurate in their timing, so he landed hard on his forearms and continued forward, stopping only when he reached out with his left hand and pushed back against the floor in front of him. His nose was mere inches from the carpeted floor. Hidan whined despite there being nobody to hear his complaint, and pushed himself off the ground. No matter how much he practiced these movements, his instincts always accounted for a tail he didn't have. He continued to grouse before it occurred to him that maybe his scythe could help with that. He stopped brushing off immediately and popped out of the room, purring eagerly.

The purr changed to a thick rumble, then died as his steps slowed. Leaving the room and entering the hallway, the tracks of Konan's path just a few minutes prior lingered. Hidan found himself reflexively reaching for the handle of his favorite weapon, pulling it closer, as if that would soothe anything. His other hand curled, and he came up with a really, really good idea for one of the training rooms on the spot. But this time, the suddenness of this feeling left no doubt. Hidan shook his head, pushed it away. When stuff came up out of nowhere like this with no obvious cause, it was _definitely _someone else's feelings. He remembered the look on Konan's face, the sudden change in the air as she told them they looked like all her dead friends, and felt very stupid. Following the trail, he raced to the front of the building.

The lobby was in darkness, as it had been ever since she first raced out of the room and left them to their thoughts. Hidan would've preferred the warm light of the sun himself, but at this moment he understood perfectly her perspective. The darkness was better for being alone. He slowly, carefully stepped out onto the lobby floor and made his way to the desk she was standing in front of. He stopped a little behind and to her left, and considered what to say. Even for someone like him, this was still a guessing game. He tried his best to see how her feelings felt, but the only things they left him wanting was a room full of punching bags to beat mercilessly. A shiver shimmered up his spine, and something seemed to slip. A feeling of panic that was all his own rushed through Hidan's veins. He recognized this vague sense of being off-kilter, unstable. It was a terribly dangerous thing to be, and everyone he'd ever felt it from had had an uncontrollable situation that someone always had to step in to control. Family if they were lucky, cops if they were less lucky, a judge ordering them to a psychiatric stay if they were super in over their heads. Sometimes, in the best of cases, it had been him. The desire not to let her be alone took him, and Hidan understood exactly what he needed to do.

"Want a hug?"

Konan felt something twist inside. Her first thought was that no way in hell could she do that. Touching him, wrapping her arms around him, letting him hold her in a close manner...something in that felt like it would be wrong somehow. _He's not my Hidan. He's another person who just happens to look and sound a lot like him. He's like my Hidan's twin brother! I can't just skip from man to man like that, as if he was interchangeable. Hidan is just like Yahiko in how unique he is. That would be betrayal. No, it wouldn't. He'd understand perfectly if he was able to. Actually… _Actually, this difference in semantics was her rational mind speaking. Konan, after running through a great deal of thought, realized that she was going about this entirely the wrong way. Her rational mind was entirely helpless. It was no good to appeal to it. For now, as long as it felt like betrayal, it was. _I've never thought of it like that. I've never decided my own reality like that. I don't know how to think in this way. _

Fortunately, someone did, and he was standing right there waiting for her. Konan turned and looked him in the eyes. He looked faintly worried at first glance, but grinned before she finished turning. He wondered how much directness she was used to, then decided, screw it. He was a direct person, she'd have had to get used to that before, so onward! He reached out his arms and held them there, an invitation to step into them should she decide yes.

Konan hesitated. It still seemed wrong. But looking in his eyes, there appeared nothing but a desire to make her feel better. _Why is that look there? Sometimes, when I've done something for him, Hidan has offered assistance in return because he sees me as being like himself. But this Hidan is nothing like me. Why? _She had no idea. All she knew was that stepping into his arms right now would be something very significant. A show of trust. Did she trust him?

Hidan's arms were starting to feel it after a couple seconds being held out like that. He knew he'd feel so, so much worse, maybe up to triple terri-bad levels even, if he left himself and her to such feelings. He didn't have the slightest clue what he was defending himself from, except that it was awful, and a hug helped with awful feelings no matter what they were, right? So he kept his arms up despite their burning.

Konan wondered how long he was going to keep this up, and why. Then she realized she was very stupid. _He trusts me. He's inherently unreasonable enough to do that. My whole plan depended on him trusting me. Why did it take me so long to think of that? _Such faith couldn't go unrepaid. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.

The world dropped out from under her. As soon as her fingers made skin to skin contact, she felt it. Without any knowledge or feeling, her knees went limp and he held her up. Konan's perception was far away from such small concerns.

Her perception was that the world had turned liquid, no, more insubstantial than liquid, and was now in action ever everywhere, and she was in serious danger of being swallowed up and dissolved. With no small horror and amazement, she realized Hidan was hollow. Since first contact his skin and muscle, all that seemed solid in him, had first become as thin as the membrane surrounding an apple, then disappeared entirely. All she could perceive now was that she was in contact with a portion of the liquid reality that _hurt_, and was on the edge of falling into it. Suspended over the abyss, she could imagine her entire being separated into its constituent motes never to be reunited again, and said being became almost entirely composed of fear. Almost. Even as she feared falling in, she knew she could not. Somehow, though she couldn't feel it, Konan's being was still attached to her body somewhere, and her body could not pass through Hidan's. Her being could not truly merge with this substance of reality.

This inability was not absolute, however. Some things can escape beyond a single person's being even while confined to a physical body. Parts of one's personality and identity cannot, but emotions easily can. So it was that before her perception, the substance of reality that she could only barely stay separate from reclaimed the parts of itself that were in her. The pain of loss, of deprivation, that dull ache that pounded through her entire body and fatigued her was first transmuted, then withdrawn. From a dull ache which tired her and felt uneven and dirty, it became a sharp flash of stabbing, cutting pain, a _clean _form of pain that drew all impurities out and filled her with energy. The only impurities it drew out this time were itself, the impossible deep blue that was not blue, it was every other color at once actually, but mostly blue. Most of the colors it consisted of she had no possible name for. All she could name was a deep blueish color that felt like stabbing and splitting and falling, and had once made her feel afraid. As soon as the pain was purified she had stopped feeling fear. Now it seemed, above all else, clean. She wanted to fall into it, become precise, defined and clean like it was. Still her body held her back.

It was awful, terribly awful. Tears filled her eyes, and her arms tightened around Hidan's broad shoulders. Hidan's arms tightened too, but his eyes stayed unfocused straight ahead. He had felt the fear, of course, as well as the...the...what? Something...something sinking down, incorporated and washed away into him. He wondered what that feeling had been. The feeling that...what? Had something important happened? She'd been afraid, he remembered. Had anything else happened? No, nothing that was in his recollection. No other feelings. He smiled and rubbed her back comfortingly, wondering what she'd been afraid of.

It withdrew. The pain that filled all of reality, that gave life, that made things right that were wrong, it hid itself again. Konan was able to wrestle her emotions back under control, and found herself pressed up against Hidan's muscular shoulder while he rubbed circles in her back. Rubbing circles like that seemed so Hidan somehow, so much like the _huh, I heard upset people like this, let's try it out _form she'd always imagined any attempt of his to be kind would take. It was utterly soothing, and intolerable. But this time, even though it was for the same reason, it being intolerable didn't hurt in the same terrible way. She marveled at this as she stepped back.

Hidan melted with relief, and almost fell forward as the burden was lifted from his shoulders. Now that he didn't have to use his energy to keep her feelings from overwhelming him, his eyelids began to send signals warning him of what time it was. It was really too bad, he would've liked to nuzzle her more, watch her smile like she was now for a while, but he actually did have questions to be asked. With a sigh, he reached back and grabbed the scythe, stepping back to sit on the desk as he did so in order to lay it across his lap. Konan stayed where she was, looking at him intently and with no desire to turn away.

"I have some questions about...everything," he said. This was no surprise, and Konan waited patiently for him to settle on what to ask first.

"Where did this thing come from?"

Konan blinked in surprise. Then it dawned on her that of course, after what Hidan had said earlier it followed that he would be most interested in his original's past. The _one _group of topics she didn't know anything about. "I don't know. Perhaps I should warn you; the original Akatsuki was not a group of friends, as you seem to be. I knew them only as far as I worked with them. I would've liked to know your original more, but fraternizing that much would have been highly unusual and suspicious, so I did not. I can't tell you anything of his past."

Hidan had looked at her expectantly while she answered as if he had a list organized and ready to run through, a guess confirmed by the way he muttered, "Oh. Crap," and furrowed his eyebrows. After only a few seconds, he got a lightbulb expression on his face and asked, "But wait, that means you know how he fought and stuff, right? His techniques? What kind of cool ninja shit did he do?"

_Uh oh. This poor guy… _Her face slipped and revealed the oncoming disappointment. Hidan's expression changed from "eager lightbulb" to "hah?" as he looked. Konan rearranged her face quickly and proceeded. "I'm sorry, but...not a lot. There were only two notable characteristics of your original. The first was his immortality. He could take any amount of damage that didn't destroy his body on the cellular level and survive it. Given how he didn't bother defending himself most of the time, I believe he healed more efficiently and faster to compensate. As far as actual techniques, though… he only had one that I know of." Hidan's eyes were doing something strange. They were widening in an odd way that made her feel very, very bad for telling him this. His lips joined the act, too, and Konan fought not to cringe.

"The reason your scythe has three blades is to increase its attack span. It's not meant to kill the enemy itself, although it can easily do that if you hit the right place, but your original only used it to gather blood from the enemy. He had a ritual, used in battle as part of his religion. It was some kind of human-sacrifice ritual, and he considered it disrespectful to his god not to use it, so that was the only technique he fought with. He had to get some of the enemy's blood, stab himself and draw a design on the ground with his own blood. When he ingested the enemy's blood and stood in the design, his body would change color to show it was connected with the enemy's body. As long as he stood in the design, anything that was inflicted on him would be inflicted on his target as well." Konan paused to catch a breath and gauge Hidan's reaction, which had paused at the stage it was at before. His eyes changed slightly, keeping their unusual guilt-tripping qualities but with a look of added bewilderment in them, like she was doing something to him and he couldn't understand what he had done to deserve it. She was used to "taking care of" minor nuisances Nagato did not wish to bring out another Path for, but something in this particular man's expression touched her in a way screams had not for some time. Her voice softened to a near whisper for the final devastating news.

"I'm afraid...the limitations are as bad as they sound." Konan swallowed. "This only worked as long as he stayed in the circle, which meant that his greatest physical attribute, his mobility, was rendered useless. In the time it took to draw the circle and stab himself fatally, an enemy could easily force him out of it. The technique either only worked on one enemy at a time, or he simply never bothered to use it on more than one, but either way only one target could be killed using this technique. If he wanted to kill more than one, it would require leaving, fighting to get more blood, and returning to the circle all over again. He had to have backup for every battle if there was a chance of there being more than one enemy, and the technique would fail if an enemy got the chance to see it and live. Backup is the only reason he survived using such a technique, because his immortality could easily be defeated by an enemy forcing him out of the circle and immobilizing him, such as by cutting off his head. In fact...that's how he died."

_He wasn't supposed to ever die. _The shock from months ago came over her, and Konan was rendered speechless once again. _No, he…no, the possibility that he could be immobilized is right there, easily deducible, plain as day. The idea that he couldn't was one that I should never have entertained. I was stupid, blinded by lust and whatever kind of connection I may have begun to think we had. Just because a man is handsome, has the protection and guidance of a literal god, and seems more than normal doesn't mean the universe is obligated to protect him. There's no special armor awarded to those who are special. I must never forget that again. I'm not sure how I _did _forget that...again. _

She bowed her head in an instinctive show of respect to the dead, regardless if they could see her or not. "His abilities also included the standard ones that every shinobi learns from their general education - the ability to handle ninja tools, kunai, and shuriken, some moderate skill in hand to hand combat, some low-level jutsus. If you have inherited any capacity to be a shinobi, you should have those skills as muscle memory."

Once more she faced him, looked into his eyes. "Any questions?"

Hidan stared back, the guilt trip gone but the bewilderment remaining. Slowly he blinked, and looked down. His mouth moved as he considered what to say. His hands tightened around the stem of the scythe just below its lowest blade, and he lifted it, held the blades in front of his face. "So, this is all I have."

Konan reminded him softly, "And the ritual, and immortality."

Hidan shook his head. "Immortality, yeah. But no battle techniques. No actual impressive unique things, except something I can't use. I can get stabbed, and I can use a slightly different weapon slightly better than some rando could. That's all I get from my original, that...that fucking bastard."

Konan frowned. "The ritual isn't _completely _unusable."

Hidan looked up sharply at her. "Yeah, it fucking well is. It's a thing that requires me to be there close to the person I'd use it on, gives them enough time and enough warning of how totally screwed they are to let all the dread and fear and shit settle in, and makes me feel the same as they feel. That is completely and utterly, totally fuckin' unusable. I'd drive myself insane if I used that! I couldn't use it for anything except killing someone, so every time I used it I'd have to feel all the fear and pain of dying… Yeah, I don't like feeling that shit! I can't use it at all! It'd make me lose my mind! How in the fuck could-"

He continued on in an almost uninterrupted string of curses for some time, but Konan stopped paying attention and continued to process the beginning of what he'd said. _He does feel the pain, but he enjoys that usually because he's a masochist. But he mentioned fear as well… The ritual doesn't make Hidan feel the same emotions as his victims. He's never described feeling fear before. I didn't say anything to imply it did, I only said his body would become linked to their body. I only described physical linkage. Why on earth would he think…?_

"Hidan?" she interrupted. He looked up with an angry look on his face, presumably at his unhelpful bastard of an original. Konan stared at him and found the inner blaze surging of its own accord behind her eyes as she focused intently. The look dropped and his mouth fell open a little, but all she was focused on was his eyes. His eyes near instantly assumed the focus of a predator, even as they widened in awe. The result was a combination of both. The space between them seemed to vibrate as they both looked with intense focus at each other, and only each other. This time, there was no other business to get in the way.

"Hidan...how did you know my intentions were trustworthy?" she demanded.

For someone else, he might not've, but for her he obeyed. "You felt trustworthy. With you there, I didn't feel any mocking like 'hehe, suckers', I didn't feel any anger or desire to hurt, I didn't feel anything except closeness. If you had been untrustworthy, you would've brought untrustworthy feelings and shit with you. I didn't. So, I knew you were okay."

The intense focus and burning disappeared from Konan's eyes as she retreated into her own thoughts, though she continued to look into him. _Itachi… _Hidan lowered his gaze and started scratching his head, feeling suddenly sheepish. _They're different people, not the people I knew… _Hidan stopped scratching and looked up. The space between them that had seemed so close before now seemed like a cold, uncrossable void. Hidan's arms prickled with goosebumps. _But, didn't they seem to have the same abilities? Why…?_

Konan returned to the room, which now seemed much more empty than it was before. She could feel the empty space around them, somehow, as well as the silence. Hidan looked at her, looking just as confused as she was. But he would, wouldn't he? The exact words Itachi had used before came back, and she did something she'd never done before.

She blushed AND facepalmed.

Hidan felt the ripple of an urge to laugh pass through him, then it was gone.

Konan lowered her hand to her side, and the very slight redness she had been able to allow to her cheeks disappeared. "My apologies. Immortality was the only special ability he had, but like everyone else my Hidan had some...quirks. One of those was unusually accurate perception. He could see things in other people that were not immediately obvious, almost at a glance. He saw some things I'd rather not mention in me, and sometimes made comments about Kakuzu or others that seemed reasonably true, but only if you had certain information that he was never given."

She peered closer at the version of Hidan sitting before her. "Unlike you, however, this only worked if he was bothering to pay attention or whatever he saw was interesting enough to grab him. The range of things he could perceive was limited, as well. Kakuzu found it _veeerrrry _helpful how often he might be asked to take a close look at an enemy and deduce nothing more specific than "What the fuck is wrong with that guy?" or something similarly unhelpful. A great many things he couldn't see, couldn't identify in specific language, or ignored as unimportant. And all he did was _see_ things in other people, not _feel _them as you claim to. I'm intrigued now about what has happened to change you."

_As well as why you have to be so different from my Hidan, and who the hell are you, and is anybody else also different from their originals. Let's not forget I might just have to throw out all my conclusions about this world and guess all over again, and most of my privacy will have to go in the trash as well. Hmmm… _

Hidan was feeling very grumpy. He could be quite sure that wasn't anything he was picking up from her, because she didn't look at all grumpy, and she also wasn't the target of vague disappointing vibes, didn't seem tired, and wasn't acting like she felt at all uncomfortable. Not to mention that he had no idea how to feel about the idea that at least part of his having to be constantly swayed in various directions by other people might be because of his stupid original, and even if Future-him decided that was a good thing his original would still be a jackass. Alright, it was time to shut business down for the day and hit the carpet. He sighed, sat up, and grumpily asked, "Can I use this thing as a substitute tail?"

Konan followed his gesture to the red scythe in his lap. "You may try and tell me if it works."

"Cool beans. Let's make a deal: since I could feel you earlier having all kinds of problems with all your friends being dead and all, let's shake on it. Let's shake on us being, like, new friends for ya. We're new people, so that makes us new friends. Would that be good?" he asked, holding out a hand.

Konan looked at his hand and thought of Yahiko's smile. _I will not be able to hold up my end of that bargain._

*sigh* "You'll have to get used to us _eventually._"

_I wonder how long it'll take me to get used to having no privacy whatsoever. Nagato didn't use his jutsu to monitor all _my_ activities, after all. _

She still did not think it would be possible to not think of her versions of them, and said as much. Hidan said nothing, just stared back with visible effort taken to keep his eyelids open, until she relented. Even while tired, his hand closed firmly around hers, promising.

"That room with the carpet and the huge window that I used earlier looks good. I'll probably sleep in after all this staying up past my bedtime, so if Kakuzu asks you can tell him where to avoid going." *yawn* "Happy dream hunting."

Konan smiled, and it took no effort. "To you as well." Hidan hopped off the desk, gave her a thumbs-up, and turned in the direction of his room.

Konan realized she was very glad he'd decided to go to bed, and selected her own room in her mind. She did not feel remotely as tense and uncomfortable as before; it seemed like she would get a good night's sleep. Knowing he would be able to hear her, she followed Hidan's scythe-laden back as he left the room.

_Thank you._

**A/N: GOAL ACCOMPLISHED! When I started publishing, I was aware I was taking some risks beginning to publish during the summer. See, it's easier to be motivated when other people expect things of me, not when I expect them of myself. I didn't have enough material pre-written to last until the end of the summer, but hoped seeing that people were reading this would help me motivate myself enough to get through the summer with no delays. AND IT HAS! The fall semester starts on September 4th, and I already have next chapter's material written. Man, this is awesome! I've been so motivated to do this the past week or two that I'm even contemplating the possibility that the loss of time in which to write might outweigh the benefits of increased motivation. I never thought that could happen before.**

**Believe it or not, this chapter was only a little over 6,000 words. That's shorter than a couple other ones I've posted before, and yet it feels longer. This is the first chapter to feel as long as it felt while I was writing it. Next chapter will be significantly longer, because it consists of two scenes that are too related to each other to be separated, and each is almost a chapter length long. I'm hoping future chapters will contain as much material. That one does not have the same quality this one has of feeling just as long as it did when I was writing it, but I'm hoping it makes up for it somehow. **

**Next chapter: Facing harsh reality. Hidan's not that different from his original. Just because he can actually describe what the feelings that other people have _are_, doesn't mean he isn't imprecise in other ways. How much does he know that he forgot to tell anyone about? **

**Is anyone ready to commit to this venture?**

**Are they alone? Is their world alone?**

**Find out next chapter. Have fun.**


	8. Facing Harsh Reality

**A/N: My apologies. I really need to look at the word count before I say such things. This _is_ my longest chapter so far, but by a thin margin. Well, at least it contains material. That makes it dense, not just small. Perhaps I don't write as excessively as I thought I did?  
**

**Anyway, enjoy the last chapter of the summer. And don't read too much into the list of things in the first line here. Unlike all previous lists I am not planning to expand on any of those in the future.**

**Hidan**

_Hidan dug and dug, throwing all kinds of objects out to his sides. Pieces of paper, fabric, old dolls, trucks, a basketball, a hat, two buckets, and a bedsheet all went flying. The small chest he was kneeling in front of was notorious for this sort of behavior. "Come on already, it's her birthday! What do you want? What is it? I'll do it! Please?" he asked. When he next reached into the chest, there was a hidden space. Leaning all the way over, Hidan's fingers just brushed a corner of the object he was searching for and he gasped, but his fingers inadvertently pushed it deeper. He stretched out his legs and reached even further into the chest, trying to reach. In this position he was leaning down into it with only one arm holding him up, so when his hand lost its grip there was nothing else to hold him. "Aaahhh!" He flailed his arms, trying to keep a grip on the precious treasure, but it was useless. His arms only hit the side of the wall, throwing him away from it. He landed flat on his stomach in a small, dark cavern. In the last light just before all illumination disappeared, he saw the precious object bounce into a small, shadowy corner. It was urgent that he get it in time, URGENT. His arms flailed all around, trying to get a grip to push himself off the ground, but he couldn't do it. His arms slid off the ground uselessly, hit what few handholds there were at all the wrong angles. Desperately Hidan tried to crawl across the ground towards it. He screamed, growled, roared, anything to keep the growing sound of scurrying away from it. _

_His efforts were useless. No sound he made had any effect, and as the sound of it brushing against the floor disappeared, Hidan whimpered and started to cry silently. He would never be able to get it in time for her. It had bounced away, beyond his reach. Now she would be too. Just then his nails found purchase. It was water. He stabbed his fingers into the liquid surface, dragged himself forward until he could stand. A sound of rhythmic splashing came from the far side where the water issued from. He staggered forward, the water slipping from under him, dragging himself back to his feet the first few times but settling for a crawl the last half of the way. His left eye was nearly smashed near the bridge of his nose by some blunt object. He reached up and grasped the stem of his scythe. His grip faltered as he nearly blacked out from lack of air, but he gagged out the current mouthful of air and dragged in another by sheer willpower and pulled. Nothing. He tried to get up and pull it in various directions. It would barely tilt in response to his moving from side to side, but nothing else. The two longer blades rotated anxiously, splashing in the water. Their younger sibling was trapped, caught in a rock. It would not pull free. Hidan crawled up to the 3 blades and whispered his apologies to the two spinning ones, then pulled up. There was an agonized sound, and Hidan wept as he feared his apologies for destroying the smallest blade would prove necessary. The rock refused to let go, but the other two blades were able to reach it as the scythe tilted. They cut into the stone, stabbing deep, like two pinpricks in the sensitive tissue of a giant. As they moved back and forth, back and forth through the material of the cave, it gave way, heaving away from these stabbing, needling objects. _

_The young blade broke free as the rock split, and Hidan's hands slipped down the neck of the scythe as it pitched forward. He grabbed it again at the base of the stem where his eye had nearly bled, and pleaded for his life as the first of the sharp stones stabbed upward into his tailbone in a fireworks explosion of agony. For the first time ever, his pleading found reception, and he kept a grip of the scythe as his face was rubbed bleeding and nearly ground to paste through being pushed through the dirt and stones. He tilted upwards, and gained a bird's eye view of the countryside below, separated into neat little geometric shapes of different color, with no other details visible from this height. There was another agonized sound which cut off very quickly, and Hidan looked and saw the topmost blade wedged between two boulders. The boulders were themselves struggling to burst free from their kin, and this position could not be held for long. Just then a flash of white briefly appeared against the mountain below. Hidan struggled to catch more than a vague sense of motion against the white clouds before the scythe slipped. As he jerked forward and almost fell, the vague sense of motion resolved itself into a seagull. It carried against its matted breast a red frog, limply dangling and at risk of falling. Hidan's anger boiled over, and he threw his body into convulsions swinging himself back and forth, until with a roar he let go and launched himself down at the bird. It whirled away, but his hands lashed out, grasping for the air, pulling him nearer through sheer force of desperation and fear until he grabbed securely the bird's left leg. It shrieked and dipped, and Hidan's guts were rearranged in their cavity while it fell. He held on, for above all it must not fall, the precious gift for - _

The scythe touched his side gently, leaving a trail of coolness in its wake. Hidan reached his left hand for the seagull's leg, but it wouldn't move. Nothing would. His eyes opened wide, and a field of colored clumps came into view. Was he low enough to see the individual trees?! No, it was carpet. His left hand wouldn't move because he was trying to push it through immovable floor, turning himself onto his right side as he did so. The stem of the scythe met the floor and was pushed up, forcing the blades back again over the trail of coolness as they moved more to the center of his back. His right arm was somehow both tense and completely asleep, so he just fumbled it into position and leaned on it to look around.

Kakuzu sat on the bed, watching and patiently waiting. Hidan met his gaze and stared back. Kakuzu blinked and looked at his phone, not interested in a wake-up game. The bright lighting shining off the leaves of the distant trees outside told Hidan all he needed to know about why Kakuzu grumbled under his breath as he looked. The older man put his phone away and looked down at Hidan again.

"How does that thing stay on your back?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Hidan was a little mad from the sudden wake up. "What thing?" he retorted. The scythe rested against his back, no longer cool but warmed to match the rest of his body.

Kakuzu figured he had time for pointing out the obvious later. "Never mind. Let's go. It's after 10."

Hidan's unhappiness disappeared into a puff of smoke at that number. _Hey, I got some nice long sleep then! _He got up off the carpet, brushed his arms off in case there was any dirt, and followed Kakuzu out the door.

They met Konan in the kitchen. Something about the way her eyes changed when she glanced at him told Hidan her dreams had not been of the calm and fluffy sort. He didn't pick up any painful or angry sensations though, so he figured she was okay. Most of her attention stayed on Kakuzu, for he was the one in doubt.

"What have you decided?" she asked, voice carefully neutral.

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. Her attempts to pretend he had some choice in the matter were pissing him off. His voice also carefully neutral, he replied, "Someone needs to look after this little idiot, and I don't exactly trust you with the job."

"That is to be expected," she responded, with some relieved tone just barely audible in her voice. "How was your night, Hidan?"

Hidan's face went blank for a few seconds while he tried to remember. Haltingly, he muttered, "I woke up from a dream where...there was a present I needed to give you...for some event...and a little sky-rat flew away with it...and I was buried but then on the side of a mountain somehow...and my hands kept slipping everywhere, like they always fucking do. I think there was a treasure in a house, and maybe a fan in a pool of water? Or… Ah, I forgot everything else."

Konan smiled. "You dream of doing kind things?"

Hidan grinned at her. "If I ever remember what the present was, I'll give it to you. Small enough for a winged vermin to carry has to be manageable, right?"

"Perhaps." Konan decided that she'd best get down to the practical business, the part that would involve spending money. "You seem to be happy sleeping here, as am I. We'll need supplies to make this building livable. Any suggestions?"

Kakuzu wondered why she was asking them for suggestions. Perhaps she wasn't as high and mighty as he'd thought. "Some food would be nice. That corner over there -" he nodded to the right side of the kitchen where the cabinets ended, leaving an unoccupied corner, "- needs a refrigerator in it."

Hidan looked around but didn't see any space. He frowned. "What about ice pops? Summer's coming up, you know. We've gotta have somewhere to keep the fucking ice pops."

Kakuzu nodded, although he disagreed with Hidan's reasons. Konan motioned behind her to the adjacent room. "There is plenty of room in there for whatever you need."

_We only need one thing, and that's a freezer. _Hidan wondered about her vagueness. _Do they not have freezers where she comes from? _He glanced at Kakuzu, who glanced back with a similar questioning look.

Konan noticed this exchange and decided to come clean. "I woke up in this world the day before yesterday, in the mid-afternoon. I looked through the abandoned houses, hunted, found someone to talk to who told me about his experience discovering he was not a normal person of this world, and went to sleep. The entire next day was spent planning, finding this place, and locating all of you. The only thing I have had time to learn about this world is that a great many things exist which I do not understand. Whatever it is you require, you will have to acquire."

Kakuzu's eyebrows shot up, and Hidan grinned from being _very _impressed. Kakuzu would have time to indulge his dislike of being forced into such annoying, unpleasant, perplexing circumstances later. For now, all these things were overshadowed by the fact that the person who had done this to him and a boatload of other people was a woman who had spent one day in their world, understood nothing of their technology, and was dealing with all of her loved ones, coworkers, and herself being dead at the same time. _And _here she was, getting down to business on her second day. If there was anything he could respect, it had to be such resilience.

Hidan figured she would need someone to show her 'round, then. Who better than yours truly? For the second time in as many hours as they had spent in each other's company, he gave her a thumbs up. Kakuzu rolled his eyes and made some sarcastic comment in his thoughts about Hidan appointing himself as Queen's servant boy. Konan started to be quite concerned, which was not the feeling he was going for. As soon as Hidan registered that reaction, his smile fell and he wondered what he was doing wrong.

Konan skillfully and conspicuously changed the subject. "I would assume those are food storage devices. So, aside from places to keep food, what else?" Since she didn't have the slightest clue what they would consider necessary, she made herself useful by conjuring a sheet of paper out of her cloak and retrieving her pen. Someone would need to keep an orderly list of supplies.

Hidan mentioned, "I ran around a lot while we were waiting yesterday and checked out the place. All the rooms have a bathroom in them, and the faucets work. Ooh, speaking of yesterday, have you seen the basement yet?"

"Yes. Water in bathrooms is generally used for bathing, not drinking. Do any other rooms have drinking water?"

"Aw yes! That baby could stand a little renovation for cleaning purposes, but otherwise it's like it was custom built!" Hidan then considered her question. "What's wrong with bathroom water? I drink out of the streams we have running in the woods here, which do not have any kind of pollution running into them, I checked before I decided to drink from those things, and the faucet water doesn't taste very different."

Kakuzu wondered how his companion could be so artfully clueless about things he was supposed to know so well. "What's wrong is that those faucets are located in the bathroom, a place that reminds people of germs and filth. A toilet seat's technically cleaner than a kitchen cutting board, but you still won't catch me eating off one. Think of how other people will think of it, Hidan."

Hidan looked thoughtful, and scratched his head idly. Then he turned, approached the cabinets on the right, and opened two of them that had their handles together in the middle to reveal a hole in the wall where a pipe would have gone. "Looks like there used to be a sink here!"

Konan agreed, but… "Why the hell do these cabinets have tops then?" Kakuzu asked.

"When I was exploring the abandoned houses the day before yesterday, many of the beds had sheets on them. Could that be relevant?"

Hidan snorted. "What, you think you're the only one to sleep in those things? _Please._"

The other two looked sharply at him in unison. "What? I've seen signs of human use and the occasional people in there at night. I don't know anything else, okay? What are you guys staring at?"

Konan thought back to her recent stay there and the signs of complete abandonment _she'd _observed. "What signs were those?"

Hidan replied, "Uh, some person shaped depressions in the beds, doors opened where I hadn't left them open, shit like that. Wait, no, it was windows opened; the doors were closed. I think one time there was some sound from the basement."

Konan immediately wrote something in very large size across the top of the paper. "Hidan, you and I are as of right now assigned to exploration detail. You say you have already explored this entire building, and I have seen the bottom floor and basement, so this location can be confirmed safe. _Every other building _on this entire street must be checked, thoroughly, inside and out, by the both of us. You can detect people or other sentient beings easily, and I know what to look for as well as having some searching jutsu of my own. I'm classifying this as an urgent mission, to be completed in a week at most."

Kakuzu facepalmed. "Of all the things...after I agree to stay here for your ninja games, now we find out we're stuck between the town and a nest of nocturnal creepers. _Perfect._ There goes the neighborhood."

"Neighborhood?!" Hidan started. "That guy who was like us! Who the fuck was he? An asshole or a cool guy?" he demanded of Konan.

"His name is Hatake Sakumo. He has a group of his own somewhere…" she did some quick geographic calculations in her head, "to the east of here. His entire clan is half-beast, which is why they were very well aware of being abnormal and needed no convincing to gather. So far, all I know of what is going on here is based off what he told me. He was very helpful."

"So...not an asshole," Hidan concluded. "Did you know him? Uh, original him?"

"I knew _of _his original. We did not live in the same village, but news spreads of outstanding ninja and their feats very quickly. He was known as the White Fang of the Leaf, had his battle skills recorded carefully in every Bingo Book, but unfortunately died by his own hand after deliberately failing a mission to save some of his comrades. Such sentimentality is not appreciated in the world of ninja, especially not from elite ninja who must carry out missions essential to the security of the country. He left behind a son, Hatake Kakashi, who is just as talented as his father. His clone here seems very gentle and unaware of his own skills, but just as sharp minded."

"Hot fucking _shit,_" Hidan exclaimed. "People in your world hated on him so much for saving lives that they drove him to suicide? That's fucked up! What's a Bingo Book?"

"It's a book of elite ninja which contains information on their strengths and abilities. Ninja recorded in the Bingo Book will fetch extreme gratitude for their death, and are usually wanted criminals and traitors with bounties on their heads so it's open season for anyone powerful or stupid enough to think they can catch one. Of course, elite ninja who still belong to a village may be noted in other countries' Bingo Books as noteworthy enemies."

"Wow. Shit. We, uh, probably aren't going to do anything like that, because in this world that counts as all kinds of fucked up," Hidan stated. He looked to Kakuzu for confirmation, and received it.

"I didn't think you would. Let us save that for the second week. We'll need time to gather everyone and get set up, if indeed everyone else chooses to stay, before we contact his group. I would expect a man of his abilities and so suited to what is considered appropriate in this world to be placed highly, so most likely the rest of his group can be counted as allies." She stopped writing in mid-stroke. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense."

Kakuzu sighed. With encouraging elbowing from Hidan, he muttered, "Seems it's time for me to give up the act." Orienting his body fully towards her, Kakuzu allowed himself to show great interest in the portions of his face that were visible. "What other mysteries are there?" he asked, audibly eager to hear more.

"_Crap,_" swore a voice from outside. It was Kisame. He poked his head around the doorway. There was no smell of fish to most people's noses (Hidan's was more attuna'd to such things); he must have taken some time to freshen up this morning. "What has this lady done to you, Kakuzu?"

"Told us some cool shit that she _hasn't told you yet, _because you took fucking forever to get here, that's what," Hidan gloated. "Wanna know what it was? Maybe, just fucking _maybe, _we could make time later to tell you."

"Hidan, it is the weekend," came Itachi's voice from the other side of Kisame. He stepped into view likewise wearing nicer, but sturdier looking clothes. "We have no jobs to go to, and at least two days worth of time to listen to her and consider our options. More, if we should decide to stay. You have nothing to be gloating about yet." Hidan bristled and stuck his tongue out at that.

"Perhaps I should wait," Konan decided. "My apologies, Itachi, Kisame. I was originally discussing our living expenses with these two, but got sidetracked onto topics of general interest. It would be better to wait until everyone is here, and have a meeting. Did you pass anyone else coming in this direction?"

Itachi shook his head. "I am on a first name basis with the people I directed you to, but not on a know where they live basis. Nor do I know what vehicles they drive, aside from that Sasori drives a motorcycle. I saw no unusual vehicles or motorcycles."

"And I didn't see any people with unusual hair colors inside any of the vehicles we passed," Kisame offered, as he had been the passenger this time. "Well, if there are mysteries to be discussed, they'd better not wait around. It's past 10 in the morning already."

"Hopefully so." Konan picked up the list she had been writing on and made a note of what she had realized. "It seems there are some mysterious and potentially dangerous things in this world that Hidan only just now bothered to tell anyone about which might influence your decision, so I won't ask anyone to confirm anything until after the meeting."

Kakuzu simmered, his sense of intrigue frustrated. "Fine, then. Let's return to discussing living expenses. We already mentioned the need for a refrigerator and a freezer, and we found a place where a sink should go." No one had closed either of the cupboard doors, so that was plainly obvious. "Hidan confirmed all the rooms have water, and it tastes clean. Food, water, he didn't mention any structural problems." Kakuzu knew that was not the same as not having seen any and narrowed his eyes at Hidan. "Did you see any problems, Hidan, aside from that missing corner of the roof?"

Hidan put on his offended face. "I was the first to decide to sleep here, asshole! You think I would leave out details like that in a place I'm going to be using for shelter? Fuck off! No, I did not see anything dangerous-looking. If there should be anything dangerous-looking, I'm not a trained architect and have less experience living in houses than other people, so I can't be blamed for not having seen it. Dickface."

"I'm pretty sure your experience living in houses is zero, Hidan, so I'm actually going to agree with you there. Someone who is a trained architect should be looking at that corner post-haste." Kisame sighed and looked around. "Problem with that is none of us are trained architects. Sasori's the closest thing, and he might be able to tell if water's likely to leak through or something like that, but he works with metal, not wood or plaster, whatever a roof's made of. How the hell would we explain this to any architect we hired?"

"I wouldn't expect Sasori to know nothing about the properties of wood…" Konan murmured. Seeing everyone else's attention, she added, "But of course all of that would be learned knowledge, the sort you lack, and your life experience seems to be translated in spirit at best. Of course an actual architect should be hired."

"Or we could just seal off the fucker," Hidan grumbled resentfully. "If hiring someone's going to be that much bother before we can get to the cool shit, we should just ask if there's any kind of stone-sprouting jutsu or something that can cover the whole place up." He turned to Konan. "Is there any kind of stone-sprouting jutsu that can cover the corner area so nothing'll leak?"

Konan stared blankly. She had not expected to be asked about jutsu this early, and for such civilian reasons. She scrambled to come up with something. "If some emergency cover can be erected in case of rain, I know Kakuzu is capable of using earth-style techniques. I should be able to teach him the basics of how jutsus work and how to perform them, and he may be able to figure out from there a technique that can do what you ask. I do not know of any specific technique, but that should be possible. Deidara could use his clay techniques to create a giant blanket or such in the meantime." It felt so very odd to be thinking of how techniques could be used to fix a building instead of destroy it.

Hidan clapped his hands. "Sounds fuckin' fantastic! Alright, now, since I'm more than a pretty shirtless dude, I've got some ideas for the training room that I came up with last night." This time the pride radiated from him instead of the other way around.

Kisame and Itachi entered the kitchen and found places to lean while they listened. Itachi found one first and asked, "What is your idea?"

Hidan rubbed his hands together and tried/failed to suppress a grin. "My idea is a room where you can punch everything and they keep coming back for more punching!"

Out of respect, Kisame tried not to sigh noticeably. "That's...a nice idea."

He fooled no one. Hidan snapped, "It is, I fucking swear it! So you hang up a bunch of heavy bags - but not too heavy, or else they won't swing much - so they hang to around chest height, in maybe an X shape, that sounds good, and you go to the one in the middle and you punch it and it swings around and hits another bag and you punch that one when it swings towards ya and then it makes another one start swinging and all the bags end up swinging around in every direction so you have to punch everything or get hit and have to drop out!"

He looked around excitedly to see how this explanation resonated. Everyone looked like they were actually thinking about it, that was good… _I _am _a fucking genius, I _am. When he turned to see how Konan was taking it, his face broke out in all directions. She was _smiling _at him! "That sounds like a very good idea. It would require comparatively light bags, but ninjas are expected to be swift on their feet more than physically strong, so that is not a downside. If it can work as described, it sounds like an excellent room to train reflexes, observation, and endurance in."

Hidan looked around frantically. He had never felt any sign she would appreciate it, so he was not about to take out his need to hug someone on her. But fuck, he needed to hug someone right now!

Just then some footsteps came from outside the door. "Where is everyone? Maybe in he -" Nagato's sentence was abruptly cut off by the armload of shirtless man he received on walking into the kitchen doorway. Hidan squeezed him tightly, so tightly that between his body heat and Nagato's deep blush the air around Nagato's face seemed ready to combust. Nagato was lifted off the ground by sheer joy and forced to hold onto Hidan's body to stay steady as he was spun around. The blush disappeared, but Nagato panicked because he knew full well where the blood that was no longer in his face was headed. The smell and feeling of being so tightly held was intoxicating and scared him into paralysis. He heard Yahiko laugh behind him.

Since this all happened in the span of only a couple seconds, Hidan experienced a mood whiplash that left him disoriented, from sheer joy at his achievement in ninjary to the cold sobering paralysis of fear. He overcame the paralysis and forced his arms suddenly open, dropping Nagato a few inches to the ground. The redhead stepped back and tightened every muscle in his body that he could control, even hoping that the blood would rush back into his face. The combination of everything confused his circulatory system greatly, and he would have fallen down if not for Konan's hand suddenly pressing on his back, steadying and calming him.

Everyone was staring. Nagato reflexively adjusted and stepped forward, pretending that being suddenly dropped by Hidan had unbalanced him just a little. He swallowed, tried to moisten his mouth. "Uh...an-anyone want to explain what that was for?"

Hidan gave all of _his _voluntary muscles another tensing before laughing. "Konan just confirmed I'm pretty awesome, so I needed to hug someone. You were convenient."

Nagato wasn't sure whether the best course of action would be to stay close to Hidan so he would know when the shirtless man was in a hugging mood, or stay far away and keep someone between them at all times. Everyone was still staring. He looked back at Yahiko, who was still smiling. "I'd rather not be. So, what has everyone been talking about?"

"Hidan had a plan for a training room," Konan summarized. "I'll discuss his idea with whoever is going to be in charge of setting it up, since Hidan has another mission to do. Speaking of, have either of you seen Deidara and Sasori?"

"HEY!" Hidan yelled, as if outraged. "I just realized something! The acoustics of this place are frickin' weird!"

"What…?" murmured Yahiko, speaking for all.

"Even when we're in the mid -"

The sputtering, grinding sound that they had all heard last night cut him off. It died down in a few seconds.

"As I was saying, when we're in the middle of talking we can't hear car engines from all the way in here. But even in the middle of a sentence the sound of a motorcycle cuts right through like we don't even have walls. The shit is up with that?"

Konan patted him on the head and left to greet the newcomers. That was the moment Hidan realized he liked being patted on the head, and started involuntarily purring. He looked to Nagato hopefully. Nagato backed away as inconspicuously as he could. Yahiko wondered why Nagato would be the one looked at, then wondered why he was wondering that. He blushed mildly and looked away as inconspicuously as he could. Kakuzu missed nothing and gave up his usual grumpiness for the freedom of letting himself be fully entertained, just for a moment. Itachi filed it all away for later perusal.

Konan stepped into the lobby just as Deidara and Sasori entered. Deidara was smiling in a way he had perhaps been too tired for the night before. Sasori snuck glances at this every so often, confusing and mollifying himself by doing so. Deidara rushed forward. "Sorry we're late, yeah! The thing last night was reeeaaallly far past my bedtime, yeah, so I had to sleep in. Did we miss anything?"

Konan decided the room opposite the kitchen doorway would do. It seemed not fitting somehow to hold an actual meeting about important topics in the kitchen. Instead of answering, she gestured for him to follow her, and turned back to the kitchen. Deidara turned to Sasori for explanation, then realized she was walking away. He realized she must have a slightly different culture or something, that weird petting motion must have been her way of asking him to follow. He ran a few steps to catch up, Sasori doing likewise as he caught on.

Konan stopped in the doorway and addressed everyone, interrupting Hidan's purring. "I do not wish to hold such a lengthy and, I suspect, very important meeting in the kitchen. The material there is to talk about, let's talk about it somewhere else."

Hidan's ears perked up as much as they were able to. "The sunroom?"

Konan looked at him blankly, so he pointed out the doorway in the direction of the room opposite. Her eyes got a strange expression, and she nodded. With this many people around it was hard to tell if a subtle influence even existed, but he thought some bittersweet combination of feelings might have crossed the space between them. He wondered why as they filed out of the kitchen and into the room opposite, Konan shutting the door behind her.

At this time of day, the sunroom did not have any sun shining in it. That was good news. There were no seats aside from a neglected stuffed chair in a corner. That was bad news. The floor was carpeted in a thick, soft layer which solved everything. Hidan and Konan went to the middle of the floor and sat near each other, legs folded beneath themselves. He smiled up at everyone else, questioning why they were standing, so they moved around the floor to form a rough circle and sat cross-legged. Dei was reminded of kindergarten. He wondered what lessons they would receive.

**General**

Konan pulled out the paper she had been making plans on. "Alright. As Kisame and Itachi know, this meeting was planned in response to a discussion with Hidan and Kakuzu that went off track from supplies to mysteries and possible dangers. I don't want to do everything, so would one of you please summarize?"

Hidan squeaked. "Called it! Okay, so...the sink. We found a place where the sink should go in the kitchen, and it didn't make any sense because the cabinets there still had tops. So we were wondering what was up with that, and Konan mentioned she'd seen some other funny things while she was going through the abandoned houses the day before yesterday, which is apparently the day she got here. She'd seen sheets on the beds, and didn't know why. I knew why, so I told her it was because people use those beds. Well, maybe not people exactly, I've never caught human scent even from a fresh depression, or any scent really except for sometimes blood, but I've seen occasional glimpses of them sneaking around at night so they're at least human-looking for sure. I also mentioned windows and doors being opened and closed and hearing a noise from the basement one time. Basement noises must indicate bad things where she comes from, because she immediately assigned the both of us, me and her I mean, to check out all the other buildings on this street. Kakuzu said something to remind of me of something she'd mentioned earlier, which was that she met some guy who was like us, with weird abilities and not-trustable memories and shit. She told us about that guy, who is friendly and like a werewolf and shit, and then got a funny look on her face and that's where Kisame broke in so we stopped. Did I miss anything?"

No, but he had done something equally bad. Quick as a lightning bolt, a scenario flashed through Konan's mind in which she called him out on this right now. She decided the outcome of such a scenario would be bad. There was a time for taking a hammer to someone's sense of reality, and that time was only when necessary. She began to contemplate how slowly she should introduce certain concepts to the rest of the group. In the meantime, Hidan would _definitely _need to be given some standing orders. That would be best saved for after the meeting.

"No, everything I recall discussing was there." Technically true responses are the best kind of responses. "Does anyone require more clarification?"

Nagato's eye suddenly widened, and she could be pretty sure that if he'd had more color in his skin to begin with he would have paled visibly. His mouth opened as if with a sudden exclamation of horror. But then his eye regained focus, and he closed his mouth and looked down. The long-haired redhead seemed to have decided whatever his reaction was was a bad idea. Yahiko seemed slightly confused at what little he could see of a change in Nagato's posture. Nobody else seemed to have noticed, caught up as they were. Konan decided to have Hidan question her brother's clone after the meeting.

"Excuse me," a skeptical voice called. Sasori's glare surprised everyone. Even Deidara, who had seen an occasional glare from Sasori in defense of him, was startled. For one thing, there was no threat to Deidara or anything else Sasori usually cared about. For another, this glare was different. There were no fragile glass walls of simple denial to be found here. He sat calm, collected, hands relaxed in his lap, and absolutely ready to walk out without a moment's glance. "I don't believe in werewolves."

Konan met his expression of resistance and decided to do something very risky. A leader's job was to project confidence. However, she was not yet a leader, and had the beginnings of a creeping suspicion that she might never be. So she caved. "That is perfectly fine. You don't need to believe in werewolves."

"Huh?" Hidan was thrown. "But you said earlier -"

"That Sakumo was a _half_-wolf," Konan explained as if to a five year old. "A half-wolf and a werewolf are different, a fact he made very clear to me at the time. And that is irrelevant, anyway. My purpose here is to pass on what I know in the hopes that there is some use for it in this world. Dealing with any other fantastic elements this world may have is not a top priority. When Sakumo is contacted as a potential ally, which will be_ after _we have achieved some group coherency, it will be because he was a good shinobi and nothing more. I am a shinobi. You are not. This gap must be closed. Do not talk about his species again until everyone here is comfortable being a ninja."

Sasori resumed his usual blank expression and stayed seated. Kakuzu was disappointed in a small part of him which he immediately chastised for being infantile and childish. The rest of him knew that was the smartest decision to make. He'd lived long enough. He could wait longer still for the rest to come out. Meanwhile Deidara was relieved of a fear he didn't know he'd had, that she might repeat yesterday's smashing of his sense of reality. Most people gathered were. Nagato decided to keep what he'd thought of to himself. He held enough secrets, what was one more?

Hidan was no longer puzzled. _Oh, right, they don't like crazy shit as much as I do. I need to remember important shit like that better. _He dug his thumbnails into the flesh of his first fingers just enough to produce a little pain to seal that with. _I'm gonna remember. Promise!_

Kisame asked, "So, you and him are just going to make sure we won't get hurt by any odd business in the meantime?"

"Correct."

"Just checking." His shoulders relaxed somewhat. "What did I interrupt? If it's not connected to anything too far out there, that is."

Konan did not think it was. "It is not, as far as I know. I had merely realized something that did not make sense about Sakumo's being cloned in this world. It's only the sort of mystery I gathered you all for in the first place." She glanced at the notes. "You interrupted after I realized but before I could explain that I have no idea why Sakumo is here in the first place."

"What? You said yesterday that something happened after people in your world died. I would assume that mean he's here because his original died," Kisame muttered.

"Yes, but this hasn't always happened. Otherwise this portion of this world would be overrun by shinobi and there would be an entrenched ninja culture by now. According to Sakumo, the members of his group with the longest awareness of being unusual have been aware of their situation for about the past year and a half. The fact that none of you have corrected me when I assumed you'd been here for the same amount of time as your originals have been dead confirms that there is almost no delay between the original's death and the appearance of an amnesiac clone in this world. Hatake Sakumo was a very well-known ninja in my world. It is common knowledge for anyone who is an adult in recent times to be aware of his history, which includes the fact that he died 25 to 30 years ago. It should not have been possible to be cloned at that time, and he told me his own memories changed only a few months ago. It doesn't make sense."

There was silence. Nobody could think of anything, even those that tried to think of something blatantly supernatural and as unrealistic as they could. Yahiko murmured, "Wow… There's a lot more to this than playing with magic abilities, isn't there?"

_Playing with magic? Is that what they've thought of my offer? _Konan wondered if she hadn't made a mistake in thinking they were ready. _No. I can't believe I would think that of any of them, but especially him. We were civilians once too. I shouldn't have so little faith in my friends. _"It was always going to be. I didn't… well, regardless, yes. The reason I asked all of you here was to solve the mystery of why you exist. There is a mystery behind all of you, doubly so for people like you and Sakumo. Ninjas never merely 'play.'"

Yahiko blushed and lowered his head in shame. It was still hard to take her offer seriously, though she so clearly believed everything she said to be reality. His face burned and he briefly wondered how qualified he was to try and help her if he couldn't even keep track of what she had lived through. _That was so insensitive. I'm treating her entire life like a children's story. She's a ninja, and that's _real, _it is. It needs to be real for me too, or I'm only going to make things worse. Hell, it _is _real for me too. What am I even thinking? I hope original me was better at this._

Meanwhile, Nagato wondered what wasn't right about her statement. "Wait. Doubly so for who, exactly?"

That was the moment Konan realized she hadn't been careful in her words. For the first time ever, it occurred to her to wonder if she needed to be. _Perhaps in this world… _Her eyes turned far enough to her right to see the tips of Yahiko's orange hair. They snapped back into place and froze there. _YES. I do need to. Always. _She resolved to never repeat her mistake, and conceded to the corner she'd allowed herself to get forced into. "Doubly so for...Yahiko. He and Sakumo are...well, let's just say his original died some years ago. Not decades, but many more than one and a half."

Yahiko and Nagato looked at each other in surprise. Nagato could've sworn he and his companion were on the exact same page and always had been. There could be no way Yahiko's existence was a mistake. Yahiko turned back and worked out what to say for a few seconds. Eventually he muttered, "So...is there no reason for me to be here?"

"Hidan had an excellent idea for a training room." Konan proceeded to write down all the details of that idea in her notes. "Unfortunately, it won't be enough. Physical training is not enough for a shinobi. None of you were pure taijutsu specialists. We'll need somewhere else to train other things. Any ideas?"

Their expressions went unnoticed as she continued to look down at the page. Yahiko looked down at himself, confused. Most got the hint, and Nagato cut off the silence by offering a quick suggestion. It was shot down, which was okay, because he had no idea what he was talking about at all. The important thing was to talk. A couple others tried to suggest things, which got tentative "if we can't think of anything else" approval. Deidara had no idea what was going on. He'd thought she was uber military like Sasori had said, and he'd never seen a military training base run with so little planning. "Just what the hell are we supposed to be doing, huh? Do you have any idea?"

Konan looked at him sharply. "If any of you have inherited abilities from your originals, then you should be able to perform them without needing training. Training is for developing capacities you do not have now. I can't see the future."

Hidan raised his hand. "Okay, okay, but no matter what the fuck it is, training should use stuff we're already able to do, right? So, what should we be able to do if we do have their abilities?"

Konan agreed that was a good point, and proceeded to tell them in more detail about their originals' abilities. Starting from her right, she went around the circle. "Nagato, you specialized in the use of jutsu using all five elements, as well as some other Rinnengan-only techniques. These special techniques allowed your original to attract and repel objects and even other people's jutsus, absorb chakra, summon large beasts, bring people and machines back to life and perfect repair, pull out souls, fire missiles, and create chakra rods allowing you to control dead bodies and project yourself into them. I can't think of anything you need training in, except for perhaps taijutsu to better protect your main body."

"Yahiko, your original used water-based jutsus. He mostly used them for defense and to drive away enemies without killing anyone. He was quite capable at taijutsu as well. Mental training to become more psychologically capable of leading a ninja's life would be best."

"Itachi. Your original was talented in genjutsu, the creation of illusions. He could overwhelm the enemy's chakra and trap them in an illusion with only one finger. In addition he used fire-style jutsu, could use his Sharingan for excellent taijutsu, and used strategy well."

"Kisame. Your original was a talented swordsman who used Samehada's chakra-consuming qualities well against enemy techniques, and also used water-style jutsu. I believe he could also summon sharks."

"Sasori. Your original was an elite puppetmaster, one of the very best in the Five Nations. You even took out the Third Kazekage before joining the Akatsuki, which is quite an accomplishment considering Kages are usually the strongest ninja in their entire village. You made your own puppets out of...a wider variety of materials than usual, controlled them with puppet strings made out of chakra, and could design poison nobody but the best medics in the world could make an antidote for. Puppetmasters tend to devote themselves entirely to such an art, so that was all."

"Deidara, your original thought of himself as an artist. This was because he had a fascination with explosions bordering on creepy. The mouths you have in your palms are used for chewing a special explosive clay he used, blending the clay with his own explosive chakra and molding it into various shapes. Common shapes included spiders and birds, which he would use a jutsu to expand to a size most would call 'giant' and direct to attack a target. Once within range the clay animals would explode, of course. The clay birds he also used for transportation, riding on them to, from, and during battles as well as carrying captured enemies. He probably had some training in basic ninjutsu and taijutsu, just as Sasori would have because all shinobi trained by a village will be taught all the basics, but I don't know if he bothered training them beyond that."

"Kakuzu, your original also used jutsus with all five elements, but only as long as he had a heart from someone who could use that element. He used the 5 Hearts technique to take hearts from his enemies and use them, greatly increasing his durability. Your stitches are there because the interior of your body is filled with tentacle-like things, which can be fully let out of your body to rampage as beasts of four elements, each of them having a heart of course. Even without five hearts, he could still stitch people together, undo all stitches on his arms and send them long distances, etc. Taijutsu was good as well. He did not use any genjutsu."

"And, Hidan. I already explained to you your abilities last night, which consisted of a technique that would drive you insane if you used it because you are too different from your original, immortality, and training with your scythe. It's not much of a loss; that technique wasn't very useful in battle anyway. He only used it because his religion mandated it. That raises questions about what techniques he used before becoming a Jashinist, as the fact is that he was quite successful before joining the Akatsuki, and in ways that the ritual could not possibly have allowed. I don't know enough about him to say for certain what those techniques were, but his fascination with bladed weapons suggests you might want to try using those. Nothing I've seen or heard suggests he used any jutsu besides the ritual. The use of weapons is probably his only notable skill, and perhaps other forms of taijutsu. If it's any consolation, he could use the scythe for both short and medium range combat, by attaching a rope to it and throwing it. He was actually very good at that."

Konan looked around everywhere except to her immediate right and observed how they were taking this. Most had their mouths hanging open, or in Kakuzu's case eyebrows raised. Deidara looked pale. Out of her peripheral vision, Yahiko looked red and Nagato seemed to have his head down, looking at his hands. Deidara was now sweating. Hidan was glaring at her. What had she done to warrant that? Deidara was trembling. Sasori seemed disappointed, then concerned. He turned and put his hand on Dei's shoulder. The blond took a deep breath and curled tighter around himself. Everybody noticed this, and he lowered his gaze as far down as he could. That didn't keep anyone from seeing tears.

Konan froze. She had never expected this reaction. Why was Deidara acting this way? Seeing motion to her left, she turned. Hidan was wavering unsteadily and looking pale, while clutching his stomach. After blinking sweat out of his eyes, he noticed her attention and beckoned her using a hand gesture that vaguely resembled a "come here" gesture turned upside down and backwards. Nonetheless she recognized it and shuffled closer so he could lean on her shoulder and whisper in her ear. After a brief shiver, Hidan whispered to her that he felt nauseous, but not the kind from being sick. It felt like there was something liquid all over him, and the squeezing feeling in his guts felt like guilt. He also mentioned wanting to cry, but seemed frustrated. She looked at his face as he squeezed it, but nothing came. Hidan fell completely silent and looked away from her. Konan touched his shoulder. Hidan tightened his shoulders a little and mumbled, "No...it's just...there's no reason to. You don't even...just leave me alone."

Presumably similar words had passed between Sasori and Deidara, who now shrugged off his friend's hand and was angrily wiping away the few tears he'd managed to get out. Sasori retracted his hand and shuffled closer, simply staying near Deidara until he recovered. Deidara didn't seem to be in the mood to recover, though. He broke out of the circle and left the room, leaving the door swinging behind him. Only a few seconds after leaving, he got far enough away for Hidan to shake his head and look more like normal, which Konan didn't see as she blocked the door from swinging shut and followed.

Deidara wondered if he should head towards one of the rooms. _No. It's been long enough. I don't need to throw up anymore, nah. _He really wanted to though. It would have given him something to focus on that wasn't the fact that he was apparently predestined to be a monster. _Bombs...living bombs, that could just skitter up to people and jump in their faces before they even had a chance to scream and blow them up, bam, not enough left for the kids to identify, nothing. Spiders, just crawling all over you for the right spot, wouldn't even leave you paraplegic, too good for that. _He changed his mind and crossed the lobby, hurrying down the other hallway and into the nearest room there, entering the bathroom in said room and pushing the door away until its momentum dissipated a centimeter from closing. It swung back open to an inch in response. Deidara didn't notice. He was too busy squeezing his stomach muscles, over and over again hoping his stomach would get the hint. His mouth watered but his stomach seemed paralyzed, unable to do anything. Dei leaned on the sink, feeling cold and still shaking. _If I can't...does that mean I don't really feel bad? Why would I not really feel bad? Am I that bad that I don't even know it? People are supposed to throw up when they're thinking of something bad, yeah! Those blasts were, kind of, a little...beautiful. Do I really like that? Oh god, that would explain everything. _In desperation he pounded on his stomach, but it didn't work. He just hurt now. It felt better.

The door swung open all the way. Deidara lurched forward out of its path, but didn't utter a word. Konan stepped to his side. She did not try to touch him, but simply looked at him, then to the empty toilet. Without a sound she went behind him to the sink, where a cup was provided. She filled it with water from the faucet. Then she walked around him and offered it. Deidara wondered what she could possibly think she could do, and looked up. The look in her eyes was trustworthy, so he took the cup and drank it. It tasted bland. The squeezing of his esophagus echoed all the way down his digestive tract. All at once he understood, and seeing him understand Konan retreated to sit on the edge of the bathtub. The first didn't do it, so he refilled the cup and drank it again. Then again. After the third time the message got through and it proved very fortunate that the sink was right next to the toilet. Deidara wondered if he was going to die of suffocation, but just as stars began to cross his vision the cramped shaking of his abdomen subsided. He got his arms behind him before he could fall down and managed to crawl backwards enough to lean against the wall.

He allowed his eyes to close for a second, then panicked against the possibility of them staying there like they wanted to and leaving him to wake up in a nice comfy bed where people would want to make him feel all better. He pried his eyes open, back to the too-bright bathroom and the cracked plaster behind his head and his left shoulder pushed too far forward by the sink. Absorbing all the too-bright light like a shadow, Konan sat across from him, still looking with a faraway look in her eyes. Deidara wondered if he could reach any toilet paper from this position to clean himself with. _That's stupid. Why...why would I even think of that now, huh? So shallow…_

He exerted some effort to wipe his mouth with a sleeve instead, and uttered a high pitched squeak. He tried again, and spoke. "How...h-how many people have you killed?"

Konan disregarded the formalities and answered the question he _really _wanted to know. "You did not enjoy it, and you have not enjoyed it at any time since, Deidara."

He gaped. _But...the blasts were kind of...awesome…_

"A personality like yours would always like impressive, loud things. That is at the core. The consequences of such things are a different matter. Little children only enjoy their actions, not all the consequences of them. Whether or not they still act like that as they grow depends on what they learn about the consequences and what they decide. You have no shared memories. You have no shared decisions."

He had nothing to say to that. But did it even matter? He hadn't been a little child. Had she? "What about you?"

Konan looked down somewhere to her left, thinking of what to say. "Enjoying a blood spray or a scream looks very distinctive. You do not look like that."

_What...who...what could that possibly mean, huh?! _"U-uh?"

She looked back at him, mind whirring to determine how much to say. "It's unclear how many decisions there were to make. How much learning could have changed things. In reality, there is only one danger for me, or for anyone else." Konan stood up and looked down at him, sprawled on the floor against the wall as he was. "You can still fly."

_What? Fly? How? I don't think I can, not so easily...wait. _He realized she was speaking literally and remembered the other uses she'd mentioned for the clay beasts. The pit of his stomach soured a little as he thought of spiders, but he pushed it down. _They're only animals. Only animals, yeah. Made out of clay, that I should be able to control so it doesn't explode, yeah. Only animals. Animals can be used for a lot of things, yeah? Pranking Sasori with a bunch of spiders in his bed would be kind of cool. I never need to think of Halloween decorations ever again. Nobody ever got blown up by a decoration, yeah. _

He was glad to note that picturing giant white spiders in the middle of some glittery decorative web actually did help slow his heart down. Gratefully, he reached out a hand. Konan seemed confused about why he would do this, but took it and held on as he stood. When he was upright, Deidara managed a small smile. She took this as a sign he would now be alright by himself, inclined her head politely, and left. Dei stared after her. He knew it shouldn't be any surprise, after the way she talked so easily of other things. But that didn't change the fact that she was the first person to hold one of his hands since he'd first started thinking about them who was both in her right mind and not disturbed by it. It felt nice.

He walked just a little unsteadily to the doorway and looked out. The room was sparse with no decorations, like a blank piece of paper ready for anyone. It was so bland. Deidara could hardly understand how such a bland room could be host to such an important moment. He'd have to change it, fix the blandness. _I wonder what Teddy would think of that shelf, hmm..._

**A/N: Poor guy. Pyromania doesn't go so far in this world, does it?**

**Come back next chapter to see how everyone else is taking the news, and to any readers in the US or other countries that celebrate: Happy Labor Day.**


	9. The Pact

**A/N: Now this is starting to get interesting. I started thinking of what I'll say when this story reaches ten chapters with no reviews several chapters ago. Ten is a very nice milestone number, I like it. Might decide to write some kind of omake for the special occasion.  
**

**Konan**

Sasori's gaze was already fixed on the door, waiting. Konan was still passing through the doorway as he began to ask, "How is Deidara?"

She finished stepping through and turned to him. "Deidara will be fine. Just...some unforeseen incompatibility." She glanced at Hidan. "I may have miscalculated you all."

Hidan bristled. "You mean you expected everyone to be a bunch of homicidal weirdos?!"

Konan stared at him. _Did Hidan just say that? _She was unable to think of a response. Hidan opened his mouth to say more, but stopped at the last moment and forced himself to look at her with more intensity. The scrutiny was almost worse. She looked around to see how everyone else was taking the news, and regretted it immediately, for they had varying expressions on their faces, all slightly different versions of the same look Hidan had.

This scrutiny was _definitely _worse. For the first time it was plainly obvious, almost tangible on her fingertips, what and who they weren't. A roomful of horrified, judgmental, defensive strangers stared at her. For the first time Konan thought she might understand a little bit of the loneliness that boy who looked much like Yahiko, Naruto, had lived through. Most of the eyes looking on her were a little angry, yes, especially Sasori since it was her claims that had driven Deidara out of the room, but the anger was nothing more than a glint. Her skin crawled, her mouth dried. The dominant expression she could see was..._offense._ Over half of them looked offended by her. Baffled by her existence, insulted by her perfectly normal and descriptive words, they looked at her as if utterly unable to fit her into their idea of a human. Several of them looked fearful. But she had never hurt them. Not intentionally. Not to cause harm, to help. But it was more than clear that in this moment, no one saw her existence as helpful.

Somehow, as she tried not to shrink away and wondered what she could do or say to prove her intention, it got even worse. The remaining less than half who had not taken her words with horror looked at her with eyes filled with pity, instead. _Pity...for me. Because I missed something? I didn't know better? What do they think I am? I hate being pitied. I...__**Bastards. Cut them down. Defend! **_The desire to kill overcame her. The blazing hot feeling speared through all her insides, urging her to let it escape, to show them how utterly strong and pitiless she truly was. She was horrified. Konan could not think, could not do anything except stay still, stay silent in the hopes that none of them had noticed. Because the truth was...they were right to look at her this way. Was she human? She could not remember what being human meant. Jiraiya-sensei had something about that a long time ago, but she had helped kill him. _I killed my own teacher, almost surrogate father. I didn't think much of it._

Without thinking now, she turned to Hidan. He had been angry before, but she could see traces of pity in his eyes now. She didn't even know how she knew what pity looked like in his eyes. He looked in her eyes, trying to figure out what she was. But hadn't he always known what she was? _What did I do? _No one was willing to step forward and give her an answer. _Maybe I didn't do anything._ Hidan could see what she was, always had been able to. But now not even he knew what to think of her. She was shamed, and humiliated, and could find no way out. Not one of them was what she thought they were. Not one.

"Hey," Yahiko whispered. "That's okay, I guess. I can forgive that. Whatever we were back where you come from, it's okay. Are...are you okay?" he asked, as the sound of his voice and his footsteps moving towards her came to a stop just a couple feet away. "Konan?"

She was on the roof. Konan looked to her side, but he was no longer there. On further reflection, she did feel as though some time had passed. It must have been hearing his gentle, deep voice utter her name. She stepped over a bit of crumbling brick and settled into a crumbled corner of the roof. It made a good place to be alone. Although it didn't make a difference, not really. By now she could have been alone in any place in the building whatsoever. The wind made some sound as it passed, not touching any part of her. The worst part was, she felt better already. _It makes sense, in a way. I was always alone. At least here it's acknowledged. _

She surveyed the land from her secure perch. It rustled with living things. That was good. Though she had never had one, somehow she missed having a hunting partner. The wind again passed in front of her, ignorant of her existence. She missed it. Missed what? _Something unimaginable. _So she closed her eyes and rested.

**General**

Yahiko reached out to hold empty air as she whirled and ran from the room. His hand hovered there in the air for a few seconds, disbelieving. _Wait! I didn't mean anything! I...was only trying to help. _He took his hand back as it sank in that she really wasn't coming back. _What did I do? _He wanted to look in her eyes, see what was in there. Just once. Just to prove she could trust him to. _Maybe I didn't do anything._

Hidan twitched over his whole body and exclaimed, "What?" He looked around. "Oh. Shit. I just...forgot where I was for a second there. Like a blackout or something." He looked at Yahiko. "Probably you shouldn't just walk up to her like that dude."

Yahiko looked down and retreated back to the edge of the circle. _You don't say. _The reason he'd come was to help her, like he wanted to help people in general. Was that not enough? She had said he was barely capable of being a ninja in the first place, after all. Perhaps helping people really wasn't enough.

Hidan shut his eyes tight, tried to sort himself out. It was so hard, with so many people around! Even locating himself was impossible. He grew frustrated. "Okay, that was...fucking...fuck it! She didn't...fuck, that felt just way too shitty to put up with, all you assholes staring like that! Am - I mean, are we - no, no, fuck, _is she _like some kind of monster or something? The fuck was that?"

Nagato stammered. "It was… Well, it wasn't her, exactly. It was just that, all we asked for was what abilities we had as ninjas and what we were capable of. That's all we asked for, and instead she told us how we used to kill people and how good we were at it. I -" He looked at his hands again. "I get that ninjas are a kind of person that fights, but I don't want to pull out souls or anything. Firing missiles? I thought, when she said we used to be ninjas, that it would be something…" he looked around and gestured helplessly. "Something a little more like that trick she did with the paper butterflies. Which sounds really dumb now that I say it, actually."

"Perhaps that was all she had to share," Itachi murmured.

Kisame shook his head. "No, she did tell us what our originals were like in the process. 'Enemy' this, 'enemy' that. Even I don't think of the world like that. It was like she was using that word to mean everyone that's not us. Who does she think of as an 'enemy'? Are we close to being on that list?"

Hidan shook his head, still trying to get himself in order. "No, that… I didn't get any weird signals or anything while she was talking, just some other shit. Maybe thinking like that is just normal where she comes from."

Sasori's tone of voice was even, level, a proclamation of undiluted truth. "I don't want to become any more like a world where that's normal. I won't let anyone put up with that." He had nothing more to say beyond that. Everyone who mattered knew that he fixed things. Built things. It was a waste to him to do otherwise. And of course Deidara didn't need any more stress in his life. Sasori heard his own voice from years ago echo with advice just as wise as it had always been.

Kakuzu leaned back against the wall. "If my opinion matters to any of you kids, I'd like to point out that I don't disagree with what she said." He looked up to meet everyone else's gaze. "It _is _accurate to say that people always have a motive for what they do. In our world, it's only to get your money or your vote. In her world it's to kill you. I dislike the gruesomeness of that, but the concept is the same. There really isn't much difference to be horrified about. It only seems like it."

Yahiko looked up at him with a desperate tone in his voice. "No. That's not true."

Kakuzu did not think this was the time to let children down gently. "My point proven."

Even for the defence of his friend, Nagato's words failed him. He looked between Yahiko and Kakuzu. _He doesn't get to say things like that. Not to Yahiko. _Anger rose in him. "You know what? I don't give a fuck."

Yahiko turned in shock. Nagato continued, heedless. "My original could be...anything. He could be firing ICBMs, kidnapping the last rhinos for his collection, pulling out souls left, right and center. I don't give a fuck. I didn't come here to do anything like that, I'm not going to do anything like that, and neither is Yahiko. Keep nattering on if you want to, but we came here to make a woman who couldn't even look at us without pain feel just a little better, and that's what we're going to do." He turned to Yahiko, unstoppable. "That is how she looked at us. I saw it while you were looking at the paper. I didn't want her to look like that. I'm going to look for her. You...well, it probably is a bad idea, but come anyway. Just get out of here."

Hidan piped up. "Count me in. I'm all about people who need someone to talk to. That's my literal job."

Itachi frowned and opened his eyes. He was done thinking. "I believe most of us are overreacting. She did tell us what we might be capable of. She never said we must use these abilities for the same reasons our originals did. I think we are free to make our own choices."

Sasori's eyes moved to the left to look at him. "Yes, blowing up people with spiders is a highly adaptable talent that can be used for all matter of things that definitely won't get us in trouble with every law enforcement agency there is."

Itachi looked puzzled. "You have even less of a case than Nagato does. Missiles, for example, cannot be used for anything but death and destruction. However, Deidara's power is to make semi-living, useful beings out of nothing more than clay. It's his own explosive chakra; most likely he could choose when or if to detonate them. And the only talents you have inherited are the ability to build complicated structures and control them precisely. Explain to me how your original's sins mean that you can only choose to use that for evil."

Sasori's eyes moved away from Itachi's face. "I'm going to go find Deidara." With that, he left.

Kisame looked sideways at Itachi. "These aren't just abilities she asked us to learn about, Itachi. This is a thing she asked us to be. Konan seems pretty determined that we be ninjas and learn more about what that means. If this is what it means to be a ninja…"

Itachi nodded. "I understand what you mean, and I agree with you. But perhaps we shouldn't be so hasty. If that is what she demands, it is unfortunate. But I don't think she is that unreasonable. She did admit she has misestimated what we are capable of. Let's have a discussion about what can be expected of us and what can't first. I would still like to learn what illusions can be used for."

Nagato had been following Itachi's arguments with rising hope. Now he smiled eagerly. "I agree. It's sad to hear that I used to be like that, and it scares me to think I'm capable of doing anything so drastic as murder. I guess I can't look to Other-me for answers to what I am, after all. But that makes me curious too; just how did I manage to get like this from being like that?" He looked out the door. "Either way, I'm not doing any good for anyone in here."

Yahiko's first instinct was to follow, like usual, but this time he hesitated. _I won't be able to do anything. She hates me. _But as he looked at Nagato's back, he saw the strength in it. _Ah, who cares? It's what I do. Even if I really can't do anything, I never want to be anything other than what I am now. I'm the sort of person that helps people. Including the ones that hate me._ Hidan smiled back at him in response, and they left the room together.

Once in the hallway, Nagato stopped. He looked to the lobby, but didn't move. The lobby would be lit at this time of day, and he didn't think she'd be there waiting for them this time. He turned to Hidan. "You had some discussion with her last night, got to know her a little more than anyone else. Do you have an idea where she might be?"

Hidan scratched at his head and focused for a moment or two. She was probably still feeling what she'd been feeling just a few minutes ago, which meant that if she was nearby he should be able to feel it. He did not. He could've focused more to expand his field of view, but didn't bother. The fact that she wasn't anywhere in a radius of several rooms was more than enough information. Nagato was right. He had gotten some sense of what she was like last night. She seemed a little similar to himself, somehow. Hidan didn't know how or why he thought that, but would never consider doubting his instincts. He smirked and said, "Well, I know where _I_ would be if I wanted to be alone."

He then led them at a pace they had to run several times to keep up with to the stairwell, up to the second floor, and over to the second floor's cross hallway which had in place of the kitchen some maintenance areas. Here there was access to the roof. He remarked that he hadn't used the stairs before so they were probably very dusty, but he figured they would like actual stairs better than the method he used to get up to the roof. Neither of them was willing to guess what that method may be and agreed they would.

It turned out the door was more disused that they'd thought. Hidan tried the handle, but the handle itself seemed almost gummed in position. When he finally succeeded in turning the stubborn mule of a thing, the door itself was even worse. The handle was too small for anyone else to assist, and when he let go the string of curses ready to leave his mouth in vehemence at the little object were cut short by the observation that the handle stayed twisted. Yahiko could not help but laugh at this. Nagato had to admit it was pretty funny. Hidan felt a little humored from their influence, but kept himself sober and waited for them to stop. When they finished he rubbed his hands together gleefully and chirped, "So, who wants to turn this obnoxious shit to splinters?"

Yahiko wondered, "If you're so happy, why don't you do it?"

Hidan glared at him with a surge of ferocity. "You think I'm going to dull my beautiful precious on fucking wood?! Besides, chopping through it would be disappointing. That's nothing like the reducing to splinters that I asked for!"

Nagato's brow furrowed as he tried listing things on his fingers. "Animals, no. Missiles, hell no. Dead bodies? I'm not even...NO. That was a really long list she said. Give me a few minutes…"

After about a minute and a half of watching his facial expressions change as he worked his memory back through the list of things Konan had claimed his original could do, Yahiko and Hidan were rewarded with a lightbulb expression and Nagato muttering "Oh, yeah, that could work. You guys, get out of the way." They did as requested, scattering to either side of the door and moving to the other side of the hall, just to be safe. Hidan began to bounce up and down on his toes, clenching his fists in front of him and prepared to do that same combination of sounds he had made the previous night. Yahiko felt like Spongebob in one episode where Spongebob had started chewing through his arms like popcorn in anticipation of something. Could they really do it? Could any of them really use jutsu, do all these fantastical things?

It was time for the truth of what they were to come out. Nagato's mouth dried. As he reached out and spread his hands a few inches from the door, he grasped the enormity of what he was about to try. It was one thing to think that he could be capable of so much more than he'd ever dreamed. It would be another to really prove it. The performance anxiety was huge. He knew that his friends must also understand the importance of this.

Slowly, to calm his racing heart, he closed his eyes and took slow breaths. _It should be instinct, Nagato. Doing what you've supposedly done so many times before should be easy, muscle memory. Relax and let yourself go. _He looked at his hands, those ordinary looking hands. It was unbelievable. Nothing about this felt easy or instinctual. He began to panic, thinking that he would surely make a fool of himself in front of everyone. _No, no, I'm just psyching myself out. I just need to stop thinking. My mind is getting in my way. _He grit his teeth and closed his hands, just a little, not enough for any of his fingers to meet. _Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Stop thinking. Just PULL!_

His fingers shot out from his palm. Yahiko jumped and bit down as if he did have his arms in his mouth like popcorn. Hidan jumped and gasped as the air around them shifted in a way that dazzled his senses, heightened as they were. Nagato gasped as he became aware for the first time of a current inside him, which now jumped its banks and surged inward. The portion of it that was in his hands really did seem to act on its own, changing in some way instantly. There was a great cracking sound, and they all feared for the structural integrity of the building around them. The cracking proceeded to shattering, and from there to _screaming._ The hinges alone had Nagato cringing, and Hidan and Yahiko covering their ears. The only part of the door not making noises no door should ever make was the frame, which had had more than enough of this. The hinges were too jammed to break. The metal plates holding each one were too solidly attached. The wooden frame the plates were attached to had none of these defects, and with a whoosh sizeable chunks of the wall came loose and flew towards Nagato. The door itself had also had none of these defects, and the hinge side had splintered loose. Before he could even process the danger, Nagato found the rest of the door in between him and the loose metal plates. His elbows unlocked and folded close to his body, the door coming to a rest against his palms and the loose hinges slamming into it on the other side.

For a moment, the scene was frozen like this: Nagato staring wide-eyed at the door only inches from his nose, his palms still spread, the door and the hinges refusing the orders of gravity. Yahiko gaping in awe from his position behind Nagato and to the left, his eyes still not having gotten around to sending the signals of Nagato turning and blocking the hinges with the door. Hidan grinning without knowing he was grinning, staring at the splinters flying harmlessly out to the side and flaking off the ruined edge of the door like brown pointy snow. Then the scene abruptly unfroze as instinct kicked into gear. Nagato's hands and the chakra inside them relaxed and the hallway echoed with the thud of wood crashing onto wood and metal bouncing off both. The signal was sent and Yahiko's brain began to process this blur of information. Hidan followed the door all the way to the ground, his head turning almost robotically.

As his hands relaxed, Nagato's mind did too and information could finally flow freely. In just a few seconds he understood what he had done. His breath trembled in shocked laughter and a small disbelieving smile spread over his face. He turned to his friends and saw then there, utterly real, and the smile grew into a broad open-mouthed expression of joy. "I - I did it! I pulled, and -"

"Right out of the frame. Took chunks right out of the frame." Yahiko met his eyes. "The hinges…"

Hidan proceeded to do exactly the bouncing, shaking his fists, warbling/chirping/squealing expression of joy he'd done the previous night, except at a higher volume. It lasted for a good five seconds, after which he wavered on his feet and turned to Nagato with eyes partially glazed over. "That was so, so, so FUCKING AMAZING! I...you...come here!" And Nagato found himself lifted bodily off the floor again as Hidan grabbed him and stumbled backward. Not even hitting the wall behind him stopped either of them from smiling like loons this time. Yahiko joined in from the side, and Nagato closed his eyes, soothed beyond measure by these two men holding him in their arms.

All too soon, Yahiko stepped back and the embrace came to an end. Hidan released Nagato with a grin, and they moved simultaneously to gather around the door where it lay. Hidan knelt down to make sure it was real, and picked up the hinges. With plates and chunks of doorframe attached, they were pretty heavy. He looked up at Nagato and lifted them up and down. "Fuckin' amazing. You know, I don't feel at all mad at your original if that" - he motioned to the visible dents in the door - "is what he left for ya. I could forgive him everything right now, or anybody else, even Stalin! This - so - _**Fuck**_." He shook his head in wonder.

Yahiko nodded. "Nagato, you just did...a miracle of some kind. Magic. Space magic!"

Nagato looked up. "Space?"

Yahiko started gesturing randomly, trying to reach for the words. "Yeah, not like outer space, more like...the space...between things? Push and pull, right? You can mess around with things at a distance like there wasn't a distance!" He laughed again, satisfied with his words this time.

"Y-yes...space magic," Nagato stammered. "That makes perfect sense. But wait - if I can, then Konan… Oh my baby jesus, she was right. You can, too, and Hidan, you…" He spun to face Hidan, and stopped. "You...did Konan say something about immortality earlier?"

Hidan's eyes lit up like a fireworks show. "Yeah, she did! I can -" he turned to the doorway, to the goal of Nagato's action. "Konan. She was feeling bad. Shit, we bring this to her, and there's no way anyone can feel bad!"

Yahiko gasped in horror. "Oh no, I forgot about her. I can't believe I did that. You're completely right. Let's go!" He plunged into the adequately-lit stairway without hesitation. Hidan knelt back down and placed the loose hinges in the dents they had made, and he and Nagato followed.

**Konan**

She was growing restless. It was not in her nature to be still, only sitting and brooding for long periods of time. The injured feeling of rejection, of humiliation, of being so alien in settings so familiar, all were now consumed by the pulse beneath her skin. It was hot, and sharp, and consumed even her own fear of it. Someone had to be wrong. Was it them, those strangers who did such a poor imitation of her family, lovers and coworkers, or was it her, the lost, helpless intruder in a land that rightfully belonged to the strangers? There was no doubt that something, someone was wrong. The bafflement and horror in their eyes had more than confirmed that.

She tried to calm herself, be tactful about this. _NO. I have brought them together, told them of their past, promised to teach them. That is my purpose. Even if they reject me, even if they hate me, I made a promise to be there. I must try again. Go back down, see if cooler heads have prevailed. Try a different approach. Apologize. Be reasonable about this. _Yet, as she forced these thoughts through, her hands gripped the crumbling brick beneath her. Digging in, her senses told her of a mountain, a wild mountain whose cliffs were hers alone to master. They told her of approaching rain. Her inner senses told her of battle, of bloodshed and death and fury, and every time they told her of the blood a vision came to her. It was a short vision. It was Yahiko rushing forward, his heart pierced by one of many very, very ordinary kunai. The vision would not stop coming. She tried imagining anything she could think of, up to and including the fabric of reality itself dissolving, in an attempt to get this state her mind was stuck in to do likewise. _Are you okay? Konan? _She had been wrong. Out of all of them, there was one who was just as she had known him. She could almost feel his blood spilling. _He...he rushed forward...no, he was trying to save me, that's not...did he hear me? _Her blood boiled red-hot with fury. She could feel his blood spilling from each little scratch of her nails. A growl started low in her throat.

There was a change. Her senses told her of something different approaching, something that moved swiftly like the wind. Only this could break through her vision, and it did. Her blood cooled to far below its normal temperature. _What was I just thinking of? Did I just now want to...hurt him? How could I ever want such a thing? _She felt sick. It didn't make any sense. He was just like her Yahiko, the man she had always wanted to be right beside. Wanting to hurt him was the same as wanting to hurt her Yahiko. And she had never wanted that, she had never wanted to see him hurt by anyone. There was no way she could want that. And yet her own thoughts had been clear as speech.

Konan tried to think of anything else, shove that aside. Thank the gods for that swift-moving sound. As it approached the ruined portion of the roof, Konan was able to focus on someone completely different. It helped that he spoke. "Hey! Konan! Some completely cool shit just happened!"

Several seconds passed between that announcement and the feeling of someone coming up close behind her. In between, his tread slowed, and there was a pause between when he stopped and when he knelt down just over her shoulder. After some hesitation, a hand closed firmly on her shoulder.

She smiled. She had not reacted to the first sounds, of course, because there was no need to. She could never mistake this man for another. The look she recalled in his eyes turned her smile bittersweet. Even so, she reached up and touched his hand. "Thank you."

Hidan paused. Why was she thanking him? The pain and anger, this new bittersweetness...he didn't think his arrival had done anything worth thanks. Regardless, he shook his head. It was true, her feelings had distracted him from his own almost immediately. The triumph was fading fast. That was why he refocused now, to tell her as soon as possible. "Hey Konan, we did it. What you said - we proved it! You were right. We're super glad you told all of us about this awesome shit. It feels _amazing._"

Konan's eyes widened. Her fingers tightened on his hand, which was already doing wonders to soothe her, and she turned to face him. He grinned. "We did it! Nagato and Yahiko and I, we were worried about you, so we came up here, but the door to the stairs was jammed shut." He looked up over his shoulder. "What did that feel like?"

Nagato came up and stood over her. Unlike Hidan, he had no limits to his joy. His face was flushed, his cheeks stretched in a smile she hadn't seen for a very long time, and his eye shone. "The door was too stuck to open, so I thought of what you said. I remembered you said my original could push and pull things. Well, it turns out -" he was shaking with joy "- I can too."

He looked at Hidan, who was captivated. "I felt it, this chakra she told us about. I felt it inside me, and it felt so powerful. Most of it pulled, and the chakra in my hands changed somehow, and it happened. Just like that, a little change inside me and the door was cracking and squealing and it actually broke near the hinges just as they pulled free and I moved so quickly, I didn't even know I'd done it until later, and I put the door in between me and them. They dented it. The hinges didn't break, they pulled out of the frame. I took chunks of wood out of the doorframe itself!" He looked at his hands, held them out for Hidan and Konan to see. "_I pulled a door out of its frame like it was nothing!"_

Nagato's breath shook like he was going to break out in amazed laughter again. He sat down in front of Konan's turned head, just behind Hidan. "I didn't care. I was upset about being told I was a murderer in a past life, yes, but that doesn't mean I can stand to hurt someone now. I didn't care about anything before, I just wanted to be who I am in this world and help you, and now I don't have any words for how happy I am that I did. No one's really angry at you, it's just that hearing you talk about us like you expect us to be people we barely recognize was upsetting. We're not our originals. We belong to this world, and this portion of this world is nothing whatsoever like you seem to expect. You can't expect us to be anything like who you knew." With a smile, he held out a hand. "It was still good though, to realize I was capable of something I didn't think anyone could be capable of. Can you tell me more?"

A strange feeling came up inside Konan, a warmth to wash away all worries, all thoughts. She looked into her brother's eye, saw the sheer happiness that she hadn't seen for many years, and took his hand. They stood up together. Nagato was sincerely happy to see her, and Hidan next to her held her hand. For a moment, all was right. It was a beautiful moment.

Then she saw movement all the way over to the left, where she had not looked since Hidan had put his hand on her left shoulder. Her grip loosened instantly and a bolt of pain went through her. _Yahiko was the first to forgive me. He always will be. He'd continue to smile at me no matter what, wouldn't he? Support me. Save me. _She saw him crumble to the ground again, sliding off Nagato's shoulder and down onto the dirt. The warmth began to boil again. Konan fought to keep her gaze on Nagato, to keep herself from looking away. She might never be able to look at her former lover without pain again, but the least she owed him was not avoiding him.

Nagato's smile disappeared, and he held onto her other hand with a stronger grip. _Why? _Her eyes slipped off him, moving the faint trace of orange out of her field of view. Sharp, _hot _pain filled her every nerve. _Why is he so much like his original? His original died because of how he was. Yahiko...you deserve better than that. You shouldn't… _She realized then that she had outgrown Yahiko. Perhaps Nagato hadn't, but the way Yahiko could just forgive and forgive, over and over, _die, _as if it was all the easiest thing in the world, all of this pissed her straight off now. _You don't have the right to do any of those things, Yahiko! _And yet, the way he could, over and over as if it were easy, in a world awash with nations and people helpless to stop the endless cycle of their own anger, was awesome and intolerable. Absolutely intolerable.

It could not have been difficult to see the change in her eyes. Nagato's joyous feeling had long since been replaced with fear and worry. "Konan?"

"I will go see how the others are doing. See if they agree with you in the slightest." Her hand slipped out of his own without any resistance, although he held as tight as he dared. Only the disturbance of the air around him marked her passing, so quick he had barely seen it. Hidan was shaking with every feeling a human could have, most of them hurting him since everyone's positive feelings had disappeared rapidly over the last minute or so. Nagato stood shocked still with his mouth still open. The way she had looked at him had been so good, they had been so happy...and then she saw Yahiko. He had a terrible feeling something was _very _wrong, too wrong for him to hope of solving. He looked at Yahiko, who had a sad expression on his face. Yahiko turned a little red as he saw Nagato looking, and shrunk a little into himself. He had done that before, after Konan said his original was not mentally fit enough to be a ninja. Nagato's hands began to tighten into fists, ready to defend his Yahiko by any means necessary. But then he remembered the feeling from only a few minutes before, how ready to forgive he had been, and relaxed his hands by force. Yahiko would not want to be defended with anger. For his sake, Nagato's ability to forgive would have to be exercised more extremely than it had ever been before. He swore on his newly used power that he would do it, even if he wasn't able to. Especially if he wasn't able to. He turned to Hidan, who nodded.

With Konan's influence gone, Hidan was much more clearly headed, so they both got up and walked over to Yahiko. Yahiko looked up at them, hurt and confused. He asked Hidan, "Why does she hate me?"

Hidan tried to find something more to say, some softer way, but couldn't. "You hurt, dude. You hurt a lot."

Yahiko looked down and came to a decision. "Hidan...I trust you. Will you help her?"

Both their mouths fell open. This was extreme measures. Hidan and Nagato looked at each other. Nagato gestured for him to go on. So Hidan kneeled down in front of where Yahiko was sitting and said, "I promise. I'll talk with her way past my bedtime for as long as I need to, I'll stay right next to her, I'll get her a movie or shit if she needs something. I'll do whatever I can to help her. Sure as shit, Sunshine."

Yahiko smiled at him. "Thank you. I've never made someone feel bad just by existing before. I don't have any idea what it could possibly be. But don't worry about me, worry about her. If she ever does want to see me, let her. I'll be fine." He looked Nagato in the eye. "Really."

Neither of them liked the idea of that, so they maintained careful silence. Thankfully he hadn't asked for a promise. They stood up, with Yahiko looking much restored if disappointed. They started the slow walk back to the stairs down. After a few steps, Yahiko paused in mid-stride for a moment. "Wait...When did I become Sunshine?"

**A/N: The correct answer to that is "Always." **

**I think this chapter qualifies as the start of the conflict storyline. There might be a few chapters which will not have any, due to my brain's obsessive need for detail and the fact that other characters are still important, but nonetheless it's a thing. And it won't go dormant until a couple in-story weeks from now. Don't hold your breath. Just my luck...I think of some stuff for how the story will eventually end really quickly, but only figure out some plots for the early story relatively last minute. Hopefully I think of this stuff in time to introduce it properly, that's all I'm asking for.**


	10. Demonstrations

**A/N: A bit short, but it seems to do well and doesn't really match anything else. Also I need time to write some more. It's good to take a break every so often. **

**Deidara**

As he had done many times before in a very different area of the earth, Deidara paused in midstep. One leg remained bent off the floor, only beginning to slowly lower after no more was heard for several seconds. Sasori had stopped too and was looking up. Dei did not notice. His mind was too busy racing.

_Calm down Dei, calm down, yeah. This is not a place where you have a reason to be freaking out. That couldn't have been what it sounded like. Everyone here's peaceful. Well, everyone except Konan. Did she head upstairs? What could she be doing up there? Are we in trouble? Where's the enemy? Where's the danger? Do we need to get out of here or stay and fight? I'm unarmed! Shit, shit shi-_

"Deidara?" That and a violent jerk on his elbow broke off this less than helpful train of thought. Deidara realized he had tensed up everywhere and failed to notice Sasori moving directly in front of him. The track of his thoughts must have been very visible. He forced himself to take a deep breath and relax. Sasori watched him carefully as his breathing slowed down and returned to normal. His complexion did too. And yet, Deidara could not get his muscles to fully untense, and he discovered a sudden desire not to continue the way they had been going.

Sasori sighed lightly, patiently, and pulled on Dei's elbow again. "Nothing to be gained standing here. Let's go see what that was." Deidara nodded vigorously at this course of action, and motioned down the long hallways to where he guessed the stairs had to be. They set off.

Upon climbing the stairs and retracing their steps through the second floor (which proved to have nearly the same layout as the lower floor, except it had more living spaces where the lower floor had functional rooms), they came to the exact spot they had just been standing below. That was where the sound seemed to have come from as far as either of them could tell. Deidara had been sitting on the bed, thinking of Konan's words and wondering if he really wanted to stay when Sasori showed up. Sasori had seemed as close to resentful, angry and yet confused that Deidara had ever seen him. They had sat together on the bed, and Sasori had asked Deidara a single question. After talking in low solemn voices about the meanings and consequences of Deidara's answer, Sasori seemed to be mostly resolved. At that point they had left the room and Sasori had mentioned that he would prefer to leave this place and think some more somewhere else. So they had been heading toward the front lobby not far from Deidara's room when the sound happened.

Deidara stopped almost immediately upon seeing the ruined doorway in the cross hallway. Sasori followed his gaze and froze. Deidara quickly and silently raised his hand and gestured forward. They approached the door, Sasori following as quietly as he could. Dei looked into the room beyond the doorway, which was still relatively dark even with the door to the roof open at the other end. Nobody was in there. He guessed somebody had been going up to the roof, and he could think of no reason to expect it was anyone bad since the only people in the building at the moment were friendly.

Sasori was lightly tracing his hand along the splintered edge of the door, looking between it and the remains of the frame. His mouth was slightly open. He moved the hinges aside, saw the perfectly fitting dents in the door beneath them. His mouth fell even more open and he shifted the hunks of metal and wood to one hand so he could trace the dents with his other, make sure they were real. His light, cautious fingers rubbed against some fractured wood fibers that could easily have become splinters if he'd pressed harder. It was real. Sasori looked up at Deidara and shook his head. He had no idea what was going on here.

Deidara turned to the frame he was standing next to. "It looks like those might have been ripped out of here maybe." Before he even finished speaking Sasori was next to him, carefully holding one rusty, splintery chunk as he pressed the other into the top gap in the frame. It didn't quite fit there, but it perfectly matched the bottom. Sasori nodded his head, still unable to speak. If he had been able to, he would have congratulated Deidara on his use of the word "ripped". That was the only kind of force he could imagine causing damage like this. But what kind of anything could possibly rip a door out of its frame, never mind the hinges themselves? He turned around quick enough to make Dei jump back several steps, glanced around all edges of the door. But no, there was no sign of crushing like there should have been if someone or something of unusual strength had gripped it. His mouth starting to get very dry now, he made some effort to close it. Still it dried. What the hell had happened here?

Steps sounded behind them. There had been little to say after recognizing Itachi's wisdom, and no one had been so much as scuffling their feet along the carpeted floor at the time of the screeching. The clay-animator and the puppetmaster stepped back against the side of the door to make room as the hallway filled with curious and wary ninjas.

"You guys have any idea what happened?" Kisame asked.

Sasori decided to buck up, explain it himself. "W-well, I have no idea what exactly happened here. Whatever it was ripped out the door and the hinges. Hinges don't pull off nearly as easily as a door would, so that's probably what splintered it. Somehow, the hinges slammed into the door. They ripped out chunks of the frame too. I'm a little afraid to ask what, why or how this happened."

Deidara mentioned, "The hinges look gunked up to me, hm, and the other door's open. The why is probably just so they could get to the roof."

Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. "I don't think the two of us" - he motioned to Kisame - "combined could pull a door out of a wall. Let's not even talk about those things." Itachi nodded and turned to Sasori, asked to look at the hinges. Sasori handed them to him. Itachi looked at them very carefully, trying to imagine the scene as he did so. The motion of the door, the wood splintering… He narrowed his eyes and tried to focus even more. Suddenly something happened. It was like a pulse of blood raced to his face, only it wasn't blood but rather pure warmth. He suddenly found himself imagining the door being pulled out of its frame in very vivid detail, so much so he could almost literally see it. Sasori's explanation was correct. He looked up at the other men in the hallway and had to stop his mouth from falling open. Kakuzu's body shifted just a little, and Itachi saw him turn and look in his direction before it happened. He could make out every little movement, even the little twitches that most of them suppressed at the sight of him. He lost focus and it disappeared, the amount of detail he could make out from them returning to normal. The hinges dangled from his arms limp at his sides, forgotten.

Kisame remained tense even after whatever it was went away, the shark-man's eyes staying wide. "Itachi, your eyes… They turned red, with a little black circle around your pupil, and the circle looked like it had 3 commas in it."

Itachi tried to imagine this, for once silenced not by his own choice. He raise a hand to his eyes, traced the skin under them. He looked around at everyone, this time looking for something. Deidara guessed what it was and handed him a small mirror. Itachi looked into the mirror and imagined the feeling of the warmth around his eyes, focused again. It worked. He gaped at eyes that matched exactly what Kisame described. Somehow his perfectly normal eyes had turned red, with the black line appearing and the 3 commas spinning into place. It felt… He looked up at everyone else, maintaining his focus this time. It felt _good._

He let it go willingly for everyone else's comfort. Kakuzu narrowed his own seriously abnormal eyes. So it seemed the Uchiha, unlike himself and Nagato, could bring out his abnormal eyes and send them away anytime he wished. Kakuzu wondered what mechanism could possibly be responsible for that. People didn't just spontaneously change eye color, and red wasn't on the list of possible human eye colors in the first place. To say nothing of such a precise pattern. What kind of mechanism could make that possible? Did his eyes have the color changing cells of squid or octopus? But what purpose would that serve?

Before he could ask Itachi exactly what those eyes did the sound of footsteps echoed from the doorway. They were soft footsteps, and several of the group who had first encountered her in a loud place or with her standing still realized for the first time just how silent Konan's way of walking was. Only the enclosed space of the stairs made the sound noticeable. Deidara shuffled aside to leave room between himself and Sasori. He would have shuffled even farther aside, had he not felt reluctant to leave everyone else's company. The air around Konan seemed to be filled with rotating blades, a heated and forceful mass of air that frightened almost everyone there. Nobody needed any indicators to know she was not in the mood for putting up with anyone else's concerns.

She stopped in the doorway between Deidara and Sasori. Her face wore no expression in particular and she looked down at the door with its splintered edge and dented wood, then sideways at the masses of metal and wood that Itachi still held. She moved as if to step over it and continue on her way, then stopped. After a quick glance and a twitch of her ear found nothing behind her, Konan sighed and lifted the unsplintered edge of the door. She appeared to be checking how thick it was. After a moment she continued to lift that edge all the way up, put her other hand carefully on the splintered edge, and lifted the entire thing easily. It was wide enough she needed one hand on the bottom and one on the top to carry it, but otherwise there were no signs of difficulty in the way she moved and carried it down the hallway. Her steps were still very quiet as she disappeared around the corner.

"Damn, what happened?" Deidara murmured. "What?" he asked again as he saw Sasori look at him. "There's definitely something going on with her, yeah. She kinda hinted when we talked that she's seen some things, yeah." Sasori turned away and shook his head, unwilling and unprepared to vocalize his thoughts about her just yet.

More footsteps echoed from the door to the roof. Nagato, Yahiko and Hidan seemed a strange mixture of downcast and hopeful when they came through. Yahiko smiled as he usually did when he saw everyone else gathered. Nagato and Hidan appeared to have been discussing something of importance, but stopped midway behind Yahiko. Hidan rushed forward into the hallway, looking puzzled as he walked through the space where the door had been. Nagato stood by Yahiko's side as they both grinned, an example of genuine overwhelming joy rapidly growing in intensity on Nagato's face. He nodded at Yahiko.

Yahiko was similarly unable to restrain his smile. This only worsened his problems with figuring out how to start speaking, but he didn't mind. "Hey guys. So, uh, where did the door go?"

Kakuzu snorted. "Konan took it. She checked its thickness first; it's almost definitely going to a training room. It's not useful as a door anymore, now it's just convenient wood."

Yahiko nodded. "That's good, that it'll still be around to look at. I don't mean to be too sentimental, but it is the first real _thing _that shows that we really are ninja and can do the magic things she talked about." He turned to Nagato. "Come on, tell us what it was like!"

"Oh, shit yeah," Hidan piped up. "All I've got for ninja stuff is things that aren't magic, so I don't get to know for myself. I need to hear this shit."

"Okay, okay," Nagato managed to force out through a smile that wouldn't go away. "It was...amazing. So we couldn't get through this door when it was here because it was too jammed to open, and Hidan suggested…"

As Nagato described the entire incident, going into special detail about the feeling of energy running within him suddenly flowing in a new way, he seemed to glow with the discovery of what he was really capable of. More than a few mouths hung open, their owners enraptured. Itachi's own flow of chakra shifted, unconsciously activating his eyes. He saw every detail, every twitch of every facial muscle, every pulse of Nagato's neck as his heart beat fast with the feeling of being alive. The combined strength was nearly enough to lift Hidan from his own body. As was, he stayed put but forgot he had a body, forgot his own identity. The pink in his eyes faded to transparency.

Nagato finished the story with them going up onto the roof to look for Konan. A disappointed Deidara asked if that was all, yeah, and Nagato said firmly that what happened on the roof was nobody's business but theirs. He looked around for agreement, and Yahiko and Hidan gave it instantly. Konan seemed unwilling to talk about anything in that general area, so they all knew she would appreciate discretion without having to ask.

Itachi noticed a minor twitch of the eye, little movements of the hand, in some case barely visible jumps of the muscle beneath the skin that no one else could possibly have seen. Most of them indicated Yahiko. The smiling man's face seemed just a little strained, shaken. Actually with his eyes activated Itachi could see that none of the three were precisely as cheerful as they seemed to be. The joy was genuine in the moment, but even Nagato was unsettled now. Something important was going on. Itachi's eyes took in everything, but his mouth stayed shut.

Kisame figured they were probably doing the right thing in not speaking of it and nodded his agreement. He then looked to Itachi and several fingers on his left hand jerked. "Uh, Itachi…"

The three looked and got their first look at Itachi's activated eyes. Nagato wondered why he got eyes that could be turned on and off where Nagato did not. Perhaps it had something to do with the redness and little commas taking up much less of the eyeball than his own eyes? Nagato's eyes didn't really have an iris or anything else, after all. Probably it was easy enough for chakra to change the color of an iris but it couldn't just add and subtract entire structures of the eye. That made some sense. He sighed.

Hidan scratched his head. "That looks frickin' awesome," he admitted, "but isn't there anything more?"

Itachi wrinkled his eyebrows. Why would Hidan guess that there was more? He focused more chakra into his eyes and winced as a painful image of his best friend's limp remains being dragged from a river flashed before his eyes. The world seemed to deepen and a large concentration of chakra gathered behind his eyes, as if it wanted to be released. Could his eyes alone have their own abilities? Deidara handed over the mirror without question, and Itachi looked. His eyes now looked like some kind of three-pointed shuriken. He handed it back and attempted to drain the chakra away. As soon as he made the effort it worked, and his eyes went back to the first level of activation, then to normal.

Hidan giggled with glee. Itachi tried not to make his decision to keep an eye on the shirtless man from now on too obvious. Yahiko whispered, "That is spectacular." He somehow managed to brighten even more as he announced, "That's it. I have to find out what I can do and try it, at least once, before I say a word about making a decision. All of us should. This is a part of us we've never explored before. It wouldn't be right not to. We should allow her at least that much."

After seeing the utterly trashed remains of the door and listening to Nagato's story, everyone else instinctively agreed with him. Even so Kisame wondered if the joy of using these abilities would wear off after a while, and would the cost of living with her be too great then. Kakuzu wrinkled his face in disgust underneath the mask at the mental image of himself skipping with glee like Nagato had. He glanced sharply to his left. Hidan stopped poking his shoulder stitches and looked up, the picture of innocence. Then he looked back down at them and seemed to get a _great _mental image. Kakuzu had no idea how the idea of tentacles could make anyone so happy. Hidan rubbed his hands together with a sinister expression and an evil chuckle. That could not be a good sign.

Sasori sighed. "Fine. Being able to use strings to control things would be good, even if I never step foot in here again. Where do I have to go to get this over with?"

That was when everyone realized they actually had no idea where the training rooms were. Konan had evidently decided where these rooms were to be on her own. Hidan announced, "Well, let's get going them!" and jumped into the middle of the group where the door had lain. His smile faltered. "Owwww. Fuck. It feels fucking awful to be around her." He gestured toward the back of the hotel in the direction of the stairs.

"You can tell where she was going from a trail?" Kakuzu asked.

"No. The only reason I'm following one is to confirm it. I already know where the training rooms should be."

"How?"

"If you'd done the smart thing and looked around at the layout and shit of the entire place like I did, you would know there's only one fucking place they could be, asshole!" Hidan snapped. And like that he was gone, almost etching a path in the air around the corner. Nagato wondered how close Hidan came to becoming the people he sensed. How much of the bubbly man who occasionally felt the need to hug the nearest someone was special? He shook his head and reminded himself that Konan seemed to have very strong forces beneath the surface. Most of the time Hidan was probably exactly as unique a person as he appeared to be. But around her… Nagato reminded himself that his new friend could make his own stupidly dangerous decisions. That didn't stop him from being the first to follow.

After a frenzied chase which left him wondering just how much energy Konan had to spare since this seemed to be her main way of moving, Nagato found himself placing a hand on the banister and jumping over the side of the stairs when he stopped thinking for a moment to catch his breath. Luckily freefall from any height is the leading cause of temporary mindlessness in humans, or else he might not have completed the motion smoothly and continued on as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Nagato looked around quickly to either side as footsteps came down the stairs behind him in a more normal fashion. What else were his thoughts keeping from him?

This was the end. There were no more steps, no sign of any presence at all. Nagato's breathing slowed as Yahiko came down next to him and looked around. "Hm," Yahiko muttered. "He said something about only one place where they could be. Where…" He looked behind the stairs. "Oh, I think I found them. Hey Nagato?"

"What?"

"The back yard is out here."

"Where are they?"

"The back yard's too close. The rooms next to the stairs have to either be a little small for someone to live in, or not rooms where someone's supposed to live."

Nagato looked around a little more carefully and it finally registered that there were two rooms on either side of the stairs. He felt very stupid. "Thanks for being less of an idiot than I am. I'll check the one on my side, you get the other one."

"Hey, don't call my best friend an idiot," Yahiko chided as he went to the room to his left.

Nagato checked the one to his right. Hey, there were bars on the ceiling. Nothing else though. He left and checked out the other one. The one to the right of the stairs (the left of anyone coming down the stairwell) did not have any bars crossing the ceiling. What it did have was Konan deciding how the former door should be cut, into pieces what size, and how those pieces would be distributed with Hidan in low voices. As he neared where Yahiko stood, they were just barely able to hear Konan argue that there should be at least two pieces each for the floor and ceiling. Hidan asked exactly how big the targets should be. Konan replied that they should vary in size, no smaller than a couple centimeters in diameter and no larger than half a meter the same way. Hidan shook his head and said that was a really bad idea for wall, ceiling and floor targets. The smallest ones should be painted on person-shaped targets, ideally moving, which meant that the door should be cut in pieces no smaller than three-quarters of a foot in diameter. Konan paused and asked how much a foot was.

Nagato and Yahiko turned to each other and nodded in unison. These two were completely insane and absolutely perfect for each other. Kakuzu had arrived in time to hear what the lower limit was, and pretended to ring imaginary bells.

Sasori walked in and made it quite clear he didn't give a damn about ludicrously small targets by walking up and tapping Konan on the shoulder. She made it quite clear that nobody had gone unnoticed by dodging and turning to face him just as his finger brushed her cloak. She said nothing, only waited for him to explain such forward actions.

"Teach me that puppet-string jutsu."

Konan narrowed her eyes. "That's a rather rude way of asking. You're quite confrontational, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes I am."

"Good. Shinobi need to be confrontational. I was worried that none of you would have the appropriate character," she said, while grabbing his wrist and holding it out toward the splintered door. "The strings were projected from his fingers, so I believe the technique is mainly shaping your chakra and projecting it from your body in the right direction. It is probably changed in some way to attach to its target as well. Hidan, you were right about making dummies for the smaller target practice. We shall only need about...8 larger targets. Cut this door in uneven eighths from the size you mentioned up to the upper limit."

Hidan practiced the new motion he would need to retrieve his scythe. The previous night he hadn't thought about reaching over his shoulder to place it on his back, blades down. Muscle memory, he supposed. After having his idea, he'd tried something new, and spun the stem in his fingers while reaching down to place it on his back blades up. This movement still felt quite unnatural, which hampered his enjoyment of his orders somewhat. But his fingers still did the job, and it swung in a wide arc away from his body until coming up in the proper position. "Aw yeah, let's cut up this shit! Watch out for splinters."

Somehow he could see what the uneven eighths she asked for would look like without any real effort. Swinging it around to catch the opposite edge of the door then pulling it back towards himself, the top little more than a foot and a half came off easily. Hidan found himself grinning without any memory of having done so, and found to his joy that he now felt about a third of the same elation Nagato had felt. So he _could _have the same feeling! The remaining part of the door was quickly cut in three, then all four lined up on the floor. Paper clamps appeared to hold down the boards from each end. With a long, victorious slice, all of them were cut into perfect halves. Hidan swung the scythe up to rest on his shoulder as he raised his head to the ceiling and laughed. When he turned towards Konan after a good, long session of this, his eyes and mouth were open, teeth and tongue visibly urging him to bite down on something. His eyes glinted ferociously. Konan had never been with him in battle to see this before. Her face settled into familiar lines that only Nagato's enemies had ever seen deep in the depths of Amegakure. The world fell away as they regarded each other, two predators on a hunt.

Sasori could not help but be fascinated. However, there was a certain tact he exercised whenever such a scene occurred in real life as opposed to the movies. He turned his eyes away and, saying nothing, imagined the feeling of some warm energy like Nagato had described building behind his fingers. He made sure every detail in his imagining of a coil of wire was accurate, then sprung out his fingers. From each one a link projected and attached to a board. He pulled his fingers back and watched as five newly cut boards sprung up from the ground and hovered in midair. They were fascinating. So...fascinating. Like magic they rearranged themselves in the air. Only the peanut gallery noticed his fingers move in well-practised ways. Then they rearranged themselves again. Then one by one they were lowered to the ground, into the exact same places they had been cut. Sasori stared down, helpless to move his eyes from this even if he had wanted to. It was as if they had never been moved.

Deidara came up and looked over his shoulder. "Wow. Hm, I really need to get my hands on some clay…"

Two proud carnivorous pairs of eyes looked at the resident skeptic. "Sasori…"

He blinked away the shock and amazement. "I'm staying."

Deidara grinned. _I knew even a grump like you couldn't resist amazing things like this, yeah! We're going to have so much fun together, and nobody's getting in the way, yeah! Nobody messes with the Akatsuki! _As he was shaken back and forth by the excited hands on his shoulders, Sasori smiled.

**A/N: Alright, milestone accomplished! 10 chapters, no reviews! And Sasori gets his first chance to show just how awesome he's going to be for the rest of the story (he's very awesome). And: Romance. Will it ever happen? Find out a couple of chapters from now.**


	11. More Demonstrations More Problems

**A/N: Had to smash two completely different scenes together for this one. As the title says...  
**

**General**

Konan entertained herself somewhat granting Sasori the task of using his technique to carry away the wooden pieces and carefully stack them in another room. There was no need for them until someone was available to turn them into targets, and something about the look on his face the first time was… Well. He looked totally unlike himself as he used two hands to carry them all away at once. That should have been disturbing. Seeing Sasori happy should have been quite a bad sign as far as her subconscious was concerned. As she wondered about why it was not, Konan realized that she had never seen Sasori happy before under any circumstance, threatening or otherwise. What had changed?

Naturally, everyone else had near-instantly turned their eyes to look at her, creating a feeling like she had lasers aimed at her and ready to burn. Quickly, she assessed the proper environment for their skills. She was aware of some of the elemental jutsus that Kakuzu and Kisame used, best performed outside. Deidara did not have any clay with him and would need to get some before he could do anything. She did not know the hand signs for the fire style jutsu Itachi could use; he had been a genjutsu specialist for his entire time in the Akatsuki. That could be done indoors. She knew all of Yahiko's jutsu inside and out, and was sure Nagato would be willing to tell him how to use them. Nagato himself would need instruction in the many, many other things he could do. She decided to leave him for last.

"Itachi," Konan began. It would be simple to show him what he could do, now, as they stood inside. "Have you activated the Sharingan yet?"

Itachi nodded and did so, the three tomoes spinning into place. "Yes. I have also unlocked them further, into the other design."

Konan wondered how he could have known to do that. "The Mangeyko Sharingan. Good. It is the Mangeyko that your original used to cast his strongest techniques. Activate it now."

Itachi did so, the feeling of chakra burning behind his eyes returning. Had she confirmed his eyes themselves could use jutsu?

Konan wondered just how much she should explain of the how and why his jutsu worked. She could still feel the eager stares of the onlookers glancing between her and Itachi. It seemed that for her own safety, she'd better hold off on that until later. "Do you have a sense of your chakra?"

"Yes. It feels as if I can project it out of my eyes."

Konan paused. This would be the hard part. There was nothing a trained ninja was as bad at explaining as how to use chakra. It was as impossible to teach as how to walk. "Good. Now...do that. Project it at me. I will not raise any defence."

Itachi narrowed his eyes, pushing around the chakra near his eyes as he figured out how to control it. But there was nothing he could do. If his original had been able to do this, he could only hope muscle memory would take care of it. He closed his eyes and gathered chakra in the area. Then he opened them suddenly as if his eyelids were propelled by a spring.

He purposefully suppressed the urge to flail around as his chakra twisted and organized itself strangely. Luckily for him it took no more effort than suppressing the urge to flail around during a short fall. Before he had time to see it, the environment around Konan and himself faded to darkness. The plain whiteish halls were now bathed in shadows, no, _were _the shadows. Konan's dark outfit now appeared to be mostly white. Even though they were still inside, red moonlight shone from somewhere above. Konan nodded.

"Do not dispel this technique just yet, Itachi," she ordered. "You can control the flow of time inside this technique, Tsukiyomi, so it will appear as if only a moment has passed no matter how long we experience it. If you have any questions about how this works or what it is, we have all the time in the world."

Itachi realized this had the potential to be the most useful jutsu of them all if properly used. And yes, he did have many questions. They sat and discussed at length the nature of genjutsu, the nature of the Sharingan, the Mangeyko Sharingan, and for a short time he even convinced her to elaborate on his family as it was necessary during the course of telling him about the other things that she mention his clan in passing. He was quite sure that his ability to shorten the amount of time that passed in this genjutsu reached its limit as she told him of the massacre. _My parents...my cousins, Uncle and Auntie...at least Sasuke survived. How could I have done that to him? Murder. My original was a cold-blooded murderer. _Konan's ability to speak was distorted by the time freeze. She watched with detached curiosity as Itachi realized who he had been.

Out of the corner of her eye, Konan saw the ground begin to flow past. She looked in all directions, even standing up to look behind Itachi. The open-ceilinged room they were in was changing, flowing together until it seemed to be part of a different building. It didn't take a genius to figure out what this new building might be. She might have been curious about what this version of Itachi's past had looked like, but not that curious. Before taking action, though, she did pause to see how the scene change would proceed. Was he really as much of a ninja as he had seemed to be before?

The transparent room slowed in its flowing together and paused, muddled and confused. At her feet Itachi took a deep shuddering breath, shook his head. He ground his nails into his palms, focusing his energy on thinking about anything else and keeping his chakra still. Konan realized she had forgotten to mention something important about the nature of chakra too late to stop what was about to happen. Before she could move her illusory body the red moon dimmed and collapsed, and the ground fell into darkness. For some time she was paralyzed, or felt like it in the absence of any indication she was moving.

Then the darkness abruptly lifted, and once more she and Itachi stood facing each other. Itachi sensed he was no longer sitting and opened his eyes. He seemed surprised to be back in the real world. He looked at Konan for answers. With as neutral a voice as she could manage, Konan told him, "Well done. A shinobi who specializes in genjutsu must have good mental control. Without it a genjutsu can quickly spin out of control and fail. However, you must remember that chakra is like blood. It is always meant to be flowing. Keeping chakra from flowing is actually a common way to break out of a genjutsu. What you meant to do was keep your chakra flowing steadily in the same way. Remember that."

Itachi nodded, an acknowledgement she returned only very quickly before turning to the rest of them. "Deidara, you will need clay before you can do anything. Everyone else, jutsus are better practiced outside. Come."

For Kakuzu's demonstration, she led them to the very small area of open grass behind the building. It was about large enough for all of them to gather sitting without being excessively close to one another. But for the earth-style jutsu she was pretty sure Kakuzu could use as his native element, even a small area would be enough. She had him use a very basic earth jutsu she had learned of. All it did was cause earth to bubble up from the ground like water and turn to stone, but this astounded the easily-impressed clones. They wanted to know if the techniques had names. She mentioned that they did, but she did not know the name of this particular technique. Kakuzu decided to call it Stonemaker Jutsu. He seemed to be looking at the results of his labor with focused eyes. Konan wondered what use he was thinking of for it.

It was just as well that Kisame used water style jutsu. She may not have known the exact hand signs his original had used, but she knew enough of how water-style worked to make something up. The amount of chakra he put into it was much more than he needed. His secret enthusiasm was betrayed by this, but Konan did not expect anyone else to notice as they followed the enormous wave that resulted with mouths agape. A relatively large tree, still puny by her standards, was nearly pulled out of the ground. The little stream Hidan had led them to was dry for a good thirty seconds until its source accumulated enough water to flow again, and the large tree was left at a tilt that could easily see it fall if a major storm struck anytime soon. Kisame stood staring at the soaked earth as the peanut gallery clapped quietly.

Deidara did not have the material to use his techniques with. That left Yahiko as the only other one who had not yet demonstrated his abilities. Nagato walked up to Konan before everyone else was quite finished looking at the results of the wave and asked her about Yahiko's jutsu. He surmised correctly that she would not be comfortable giving instructions directly. She listened carefully, but nothing in his voice carried any hint of judgment for this. Konan supposed she should be glad he wasn't pressuring her to talk about that part of her past just yet. He listened carefully as she told him and covertly demonstrated the hand signs Yahiko would need to use, nodding. Itachi had a good idea what they were up to, as did Sasori. Kisame heard the sound of whispering and noticed, too. He understood when Nagato returned to Yahiko's side and repeated the demonstration to him. After the stream was back to half its former flow, Yahiko flushed and wondered what the technique he had been taught would do. He hoped it wouldn't have similar effects to Kisame's. That tree didn't deserve to be ripped out of the ground like that, and it might fall on an animal some day. He paid careful attention to the feeling of his chakra changing as he formed the signs. He exhaled and allowed the onlookers to boost his confidence as he made the last sign.

The water exploded upwards and formed into a stream in mid air. He had aimed at a sturdier looking tree and tried to keep the amount of chakra used to a minimum, so the stream had only the effect of a slightly larger than usual hose as it fired itself at the trunk. Yahiko smiled when he saw the harmlessness of his technique, and how controlled and contained it was. The force of a solid stream with more water behind it would be enough to knock a large man down, easily. He turned to Nagato to celebrate. As their palms met in a high-five he wondered at the gentleness of it. Everyone else had been horrified to hear their originals described, but from the look of it Yahiko's original had been much more like he was now. He was saddened by the memory of how Konan had described that. It probably wasn't her fault. If brutality was what her world demanded of ninjas, he had to admit he did not and probably could not ever meet that standard. But this world was different, wasn't it? Nagato was certainly proud enough. Konan stood off to the side, perhaps watching from the corner of her eye but revealing nothing.

Nagato continued to stand in front of him, eyes shining with a fond look that Yahiko didn't recognize. His arms visibly trembled before folding across his chest. Yahiko smiled at him and shook his head. There were a few things about his friend that he still didn't understand and doubted he ever would. The first was that they had known each other since childhood, and yet, Nagato was still shy about overt demonstrations of friendliness. Yahiko didn't want to force anything if Nagato had some reason to be uncomfortable, but this time he felt it would be more awkward to take time to entice him into it. So with a large smile, he rushed forward, crossed the space between them, and wrapped Nagato in a strong but gentle hug. He felt the brief stiffening before Nagato relaxed into it. Why? At the edge of his vision Konan turned her head away. _*sigh* It's as if no matter what I do, she can't stand it. And...Nagato...is there some reason he's uncomfortable?_

Konan walked away and sat on the back stoop, carefully avoiding the bird excrement all around the handles and railings. She watched silently with no movement in her face as the group changed in configuration. There was Hidan, smirking at Nagato after he was released from the hug, then turning to Kakuzu a moment later and challenging him to see which was harder: the scythe or the stone. Kisame looked at Yahiko and nodded politely; Yahiko suggested they practice their jutsus together. Deidara looked around at the ground, wondering what clay looked like. He went over to ask Hidan. Sasori seemed to be looking at something in the air, occasionally moving his hands in front of him as if to move a piece around. Everybody else stayed clear by a few feet so as not to interrupt. Even Itachi dodged around the engineer as he walked towards Konan.

Everyone else he nudged with his elbows or feet as he passed, until everyone was paying attention. They looked after Itachi as he walked up and stopped before her. The look in his eyes was calm but ready. It looked a little like Sasori had looked earlier. She decided the best move would be to stay seated. Itachi tilted his head a little from side to side, just enough to make sure he had everyone's attention before speaking.

"We need rules. Not hard ones, not specific directions, but there are ways in which we can and cannot be treated. These need to be made clear," Itachi announced. "To begin with, what is it you expect of us?"

_Cannot be treated, or refuse to? Is he bringing a problem to my attention, or challenging my authority? _Konan tried to figure out what he was aiming for, and what combination of firmness and softness she should bring. She wasn't unfamiliar with the concept of subordinates talking back. They were criminals; almost everyone in the Akatsuki had spoken out of turn at several points. But these versions of them seemed much more normal. Then why was he confronting her like this? _Perhaps they are still themselves enough that I need to prove myself to have any kind of authority. Well, then…_

"I expect the lot of you to get along without any significant infighting. I expect you to be prepared whenever I should ask for assistance, and keep your eyes and ears open for any problems I don't know about. Hidan, I expect you to keep us reliably informed, which means you should spend as much time as you need searching your memory for anything you haven't already told us that could be important. I don't care how hard that is, do it. I expect you all to be useful, practice your skills, and strengthen your teamwork if you need to. I expect you all to be capable of meeting any threat." _Should be just mild enough for them to agree to._

Itachi nodded. "Those are things we can do. However, I do not expect that is the full list, nor is it very specific as to how you want us to do and be those things. I will tell you what we cannot and will not do. If any of those things you listed can't be accomplished in the way you thought of them being accomplished, revise your methodology.

"The list of things we cannot be includes everything you implied in the earlier description of our originals' abilities. Even now, you talk of threats and enemies. We do not think of the world in terms of enemies and threats. We may not expect a stranger to always offer assistance, we may be wary, but that doesn't change the fact that our mindset regarding other people leans much more to the 'friendly stranger' side. We will not allow someone who is legitimately a danger to attack, but neither will we be nearly as cautious as you seem to expect. Even the most paranoid person here will not behave in a hostile way or expect others to without reason. If we don't act the way you want, that's why.

"The list of things we flat-out refuse to be includes certain things you alluded to when describing our abilities. All but the most disturbed would agree that murder, excessive destruction of property, desecration of dead bodies, torture, and a host of other things are morally wrong. I do not mean any offense. I am sure your morals are perfectly acceptable by the standards you are used to. But this world has a much different standard of acceptable, a standard different enough that the killing of a strong person which you praise is to us a terrible thing that no sane person should even wish to speak of. We are not weak. If it should be necessary… But we have much stronger taboos against causing harm than you do, and it will not be at all easy or natural or something we get over quickly. We will not use some of the abhorrent jutsus you described, we will not agree with you or think the way you do, and we will feel morally justified in refusing to do actions which fall under those categories. Do not ask us to cross moral boundaries lightly.

"I predict a lot of misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict could easily arise from misunderstanding where our moral boundaries are. That was made obvious earlier. In return for your demands, what we demand of you is that you try to understand us. It may not be easy, but our preference in this part of this world is a leader we can like or at least respect on a personal level. Expecting us to be like our originals is a waste of time and we will treat it as such."

Itachi then inclined his head as he had noticed she did, correctly thinking that it was a sign of respect. His voice was a mixture of multiple things, none of them matching with his words. Konan tried to combine the two in her head and found she could not. For the first time she was reduced to looking at him incredulously. _On the one hand, he said this was his way of solving a potential problem. On the other hand, his words can best be summarized as "We reserve the exclusive right to do whatever we want and not listen to you, fuck off." Back to the first hand, all his body language and tone of voice is highly respectful. Back to the other hand, he and everyone else will judge my behavior and morals and tell me how I fail to live up to their standards to my face. Is this their version of respect? And they expect me to understand, perhaps even practice it? Such polite rudeness would be a good reason to weaken ties with an ally at least, if not sever them. Part of the duties of any shinobi ranked above Genin is to negotiate with enemies, at least sometimes. They do not make good shinobi._

Hidan moved to stand to the side, looking between her and Itachi. "Dude, I can feel the respect dropping like a fucking rock. And I'm also a little mad. I have no fucking clue what it was that you said or how you said it, but that was rude as shit."

Itachi blinked at him. "My intent was only to describe and explain the consequences of certain expectations in as close to a factual, objective way as I can. I did not intend to be rude."

Hidan shrugged. He could feel things, but he couldn't read minds to tell the reason why. Konan wanted to take this opportunity to be rude in response anyway. "You ask to reserve the right to refuse orders and do whatever you want, apparently feel that permitting enemies to act unchecked is more important than stopping them, at the same time excuse this by claiming you are unable to stop those who would like to do harm, issue demands to _me _as if you've completely forgotten who is where, and reserve the right to judge me, my actions, and my very thoughts as if they are somehow appropriate things for you to be concerned with. You ask me to understand the utter lack of respect or appropriate treatment that the standards of this world permit? Then stop speaking such hypocritical statements as 'we prefer a leader we can respect'. Respect means that a subordinate will do as he is told. Clearly you have none."

Itachi actually found himself at a loss for words, his mouth hanging open. He had made the mistake of thinking that just because her standards were lower in one area, they would be lower in general. That was a bad mistake to make; humans are always more paradoxical than that. "W-well… Actually, it is considered respectful to point out someone's flaws. This is a way to indicate that you believe they are strong and capable of growing and becoming better people, a way to help them do so. If one of us were to leave someone alone, allow them to continue making mistakes, it would be a sign that we believed they were unable to change and were not strong enough to overcome their flaws and fix their mistakes. The only reason to refuse to tell someone what they are doing wrong is that it would be a wasted effort. I don't think you are so weak that you cannot change your expectations or actions to be more effective."

That...did make a kind of logical sense, actually. Konan stared at him, now aware that Itachi was really as confused as she was. "And why is it your business to try to correct the way I do my job?"

Hidan piped up. "Did you not hear the part about friendly strangers? Helping someone who obviously needs it is everyone's business as long as they're in the same group. If it's like family shit they need help with, anyone who's part of the family can try to help. If it's shit where someone is physically injured or something like that where pretty much everyone in this culture, so like a whole country or so, can agree physically hurting people is bad, than anyone in the country could help, even if you don't know them, and probably a stranger from another country too as long as they have the same morals. Your job is shit having to do with the Akatsuki, so since we're all considered part of that group we're all able to help you with that. Just because you're in a different part of the group doesn't change shit. As long as the problem is something affecting us, we get to try and change it."

Konan now stared at him. A different _part _of the group? As if she was just over to the side? No barrier? Was that really how… She stood up, looked around with all the self-awareness of a coma patient. Everyone her gaze crossed seemed to understand perfectly and nodded. Yahiko brightened and tried to look her in the eye but she instinctively deflected down to the ground. Now that he was done speaking from what he himself believed, Hidan scratched his head confused. Now that he thought about it, aside from that night they had spent talking just the two of them together and their first meeting where it'd also been just the two of them for a wonderful moment, he always felt kind of a space between them. Considering his own personal attitudes called for even less space than people of this world normally had, his mind was seriously reaching to feel like that.

"Wugh…" he groaned. "Mmmn...y'know, my job is to walk up to people and know them like a therapist or a friend or some shit even if they didn't hire me and I've never seen them for a second before. Fucking headache city. You look like a fuckin' awesome lady, so...well I guess I kinda want to do the same thing, only for real and a long time and shit. So probably you should get used to no space. Fuckin' nasty burrowing _termites, _I have better things to be thinking about. Let's just get this the fuck over with!"

Nagato filed that away as _Wait, he does that for a living? _Kakuzu was forced to reevaluate his longtime associate. He'd known of Hidan's activities, but had always written them off as a compulsion before. _Clever little bastard. He makes better use of his talents than I thought. _Yahiko smiled in a way that, unnoticed to him, always caused Nagato to get that strange fond look in his eyes. _I trust him. He is trusted. It's perfect. I couldn't have left my job to anyone better. _

Konan nodded and reached out to pat Hidan on the head. "Of course you don't do anything the appropriate way, I do not believe your original was even entirely human. You're not like everyone else. It's okay for _you _to act strange. But…" Her eyes flicked to the side again. "Hm. If it was meant kindly… I suppose I should put in some effort, shouldn't I?"

Hidan fought to open his eyes fully even as she continued petting him. "Yeah, please...oh yes please, more by the ear...uh, oh yeah, please do. I have looking at all my memories to get to, sounds like a super headache. Oh yes _there there there_." His mumbling degenerated into deep purring. If not for that, Konan realized that his mumbles of pleasure might have sounded distinctly sexual to anyone who didn't know Hidan. _That is not...no. _She took her hand away and grabbed his arm to lead him inside. Hidan reluctantly stumbled after her, looking disappointed. Most of the assembled group was faintly amused. Nagato realized the true reason why she dragged him away and agreed wholeheartedly. Yahiko wondered why petting a person-shaped cat would be something anyone would need to hide and was still confused. He chalked it up to cultural differences.

Itachi's face was hidden by his palm. "I should have seen this coming."

Kisame snorted and asked, "How? You couldn't have known a lady who talks about murder like it's a game would get so bent out of shape over rudeness, even if you had predicted she'd think it was rude."

Itachi shook his head, hand still in place over his eyes. "No…that's not it. I was only looking at this from one viewpoint, ours. I should have thought that she must have some reason for her actions."

Yahiko was still elated. "Well, she agreed, right? That's all we wanted. I'd really like to get to practicing and other things, hopefully that'll help us understand her better. Maybe now that she understands it's a kind thing to do, she'll tell me what I'm doing wrong."

"Perhaps not. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I don't think we can do very much…"

Yahiko sighed. "Nagato...do you really think so badly about her?"

"No, but I do think that maybe… I just don't think you are doing anything wrong."

"But… why would she hate me if I haven't done anything?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "She liked Hidan when we first met her in the bar, and he hadn't done anything either. It's probably something your original did."

Yahiko looked wounded. "But...my abilities...they aren't…"

Nagato put a firm hand on his shoulder. "It doesn't matter. Just keep being you, and she'll learn to tell the difference eventually. Everything's going to be okay."

"Wow, you guys are really bad at coming up with solutions to social things like this," Sasori said with an audible smirk.

Itachi's hand fell away from his face. "Enlighten us."

Sasori flinched, just a little. "Or, I guess, things like this are hard for everyone. No need to get so fluffed up about it. Jeez."

Deidara jabbed Sasori in the ribs. "Come on, Sasori, hm. I need to go ask a man about some clay, and there's got to be some kind of space you could build things in around here, yeah. This place has everything!"

"Maybe if she likes Hidan, petting him could make her feel better," Yahiko decided. "Could you guys hold off for a few minutes?"

Kakuzu sighed and sat on a fallen log at the edge of the trees. "Fine with me. It's about time we took a few minutes to have some peace and quiet around here."

Kisame nodded, already committed to enjoying his peace.

**Hidan**

Hidan lay sprawled on his belly across Konan's bed. He had lain across the short way, so his legs fell off the other side. Even so, he luxuriated in absolute contentment, and his muscles had the look of flesh that has been worked in precisely the right way. Konan sat in front of him, her right arm tracing the bottom of his hairline. In the occasional moments when his rolled up eyes would glance at her, they shared a look of pleasure. He was much too relaxed for sustained rumbling, but every so often as he turned his head for an easier reach he would let out a dusky purr.

If it weren't for the fact that it was utterly impossible to imagine Konan ever not wearing that impressive-looking cloak, Deidara and Sasori might have thought something had happened in the five minutes they had agreed to wait. Konan's hand dropped away as she heard them coming and stood up to resume her business, but Hidan continued to sprawl. He looked up lazily as Deidara explained why they were there. Even the excitement radiating from him and, to a lesser extent, from Sasori could not disturb Hidan's contented mood. He worked his jaw from side to side a few seconds before Deidara finished asking the two questions he had, so he would be able to answer immediately. He told Dei that there was good clay around a pretty major river to the northeast, not far, and told Sasori of the little shed hidden around the far side of the hotel with enough space for a small vehicle.

They thanked him and left in high spirits, Sasori silently looking between him and Konan and covertly giving a thumbs-up. Konan left the door open but there was no indication of anyone else wanting her or Hidan. She stepped back and turned to look at him, almost embarrassed by Hidan's appearance. She consoled herself by not regretting his happiness in the slightest. He looked up at her and smiled in a much cuter way than usual, a shy little smile that turned up the corners of his mouth, one just barely higher than the other. "Belly rubs?"

Konan would have liked nothing more than to give him a thorough belly rub. Yet, she stayed standing. Hidan felt a little emptiness inside him. _Other Me, where the fuck have you gone?_

He stretched his ears and yawned, moving on. "Where were we again? Some'n some'n exploring, right?"

Konan nodded. "Yes. I need to speak with Itachi some more. Such attitudes may work well in this world, but I have a feeling about this particular part of this world. In this small part of it, ninjas exist. That alone is a reason to take up caution. I refuse to give up mine, whatever that means for their view of me. Come."

Hidan pushed himself up on the bed slowly. "Mmm. Fine. What about clothes, though?"

Konan considered. "Everyone else is here together and knows at least one ability of theirs. We do not have any enemies right now. Take all things together, and I believe we have time to go into town and visit a tailor if you wish to get a cloak like this as soon as possible."

Hidan pushed himself all the way up and shook himself, grinning. _Oh fuck yeah! This is urgent shit! We can always take care of the basement people later, but it takes time to get clothes! _He hopped off the bed and bounced as he ran over. "Fuck yes, please."

Konan smiled, and they left.

As they walked down the road between the lived-in houses that led to town, Konan sighed. Hidan heard this and jogged to catch up with her, abandoning the butterfly he had been staring at. "What's wrong?"

Konan pointed with her chin at the trees between some houses they passed. "In my world, ninja commonly travel through the trees, or on other tall structures. In this world, the trees have branches that are too small and closely crowded to make this possible, and these houses belong to civilians that would be frightened. I've always taken such a basic part of shinobi life for granted. It never occurred to me to think of being unable to travel freely."

Hidan looked at the trees he could see behind the houses and tried to picture it. Bigger branches...less of them… "Huh. What are the trees like in your world? This is pretty normal for us."

"I'm not a botanist, but some basic things are common knowledge. Trees take about 3 years to grow to this size. If undisturbed for a decade, they get much larger than this. As each branch expands, it's easy to see how not all of them can remain since they are so close to each other now. Branches that are useful now will be badly placed to weather a storm as the tree gets taller and break off. By the time a tree gets to 15 years old, the lower branches are thick and sparse enough for a human to travel. Give it a few more decades, like trees deep in the forest get, and there won't be any lower branches remaining. The upper branches will be easily thick enough for a human to stand on without attaching himself to the wood with chakra, and sparse enough for travel. When traveling this way through the deep forest, a ninja is fairly isolated between the canopy above and the leaves of shorter trees below. Travel speed is, oh, one and a half times the speed of a horse at full gallop, and if one should fall it is a long, long way to the ground. That doesn't matter because the only ninjas that would be sent on missions so far from their village would be very experienced ones that almost never have a traveling accident unless they are very ill."

Hidan stared. "...The fuck?"

Konan blinked away her visions of her old world - how could nostalgia set in so quickly? - and glanced at him. "What's wrong?"

Hidan continued staring as they walked. "Pretty sure these trees are a decade or so. Sure as shit they're not only three years old! Fuck, that one" - he pointed to a tree with a few lower branches that were thick enough to stand on, but still close enough to others that one would have to crouch - "that one's almost certainly, like, a couple decades. Trees don't grow that fast."

Konan took a closer look at the tree he indicated. It was a nicely-sized seven year old in her experience. "That is the result of _decades _of growth?"

"Uh, yeah. Wood is some dense shit. I've heard that it takes some time to get it, but wood can be as strong as steel. You take a hacksaw to the ends of those twigs, and it'll still be a good several saws before they come off. Stubborn bastards! But yeah, there's no fucking way a material as strong as that would be grown fast. That's probably why we got steel - it's faster to make."

"There is no possible way that can be true. If you can exert enough force to lift a grown human and throw him at a wooden wall in the first place, that is enough force to throw him through the wall. Wood is not that strong."

"Like shit it isn't. If a person goes running up to a wall, you know what's going to happen? They get knocked on their ass, break their nose if they weren't going fast enough to break their head, and get laughed at. Only cartoon characters, fictional ones that people draw doing funny things for kids to laugh at, only those guys can go through a wall without hurting themselves. I've tripped and fallen against the wall of that bar you met us at before. The doctors had to do a scan to tell if I had a concussion or not."

"You are telling the truth about this?"

"Sure as shit."

Konan fell silent and stared at small cracks in the street as it passed under her. It might be possible, she supposed. It was known that paper made from the wood of trees that were carefully cultivated with chakra exhibited unusual properties if chakra was run through it. It was no mystery that chakra could change the properties of wood. Possibly, not having any in this world affected the way trees usually grew. But Konan could not make sense of the _way _not having chakra changed tree growth in this world.

"Hidan?"

"Yep?"

"The only difference between our worlds that is likely to have caused this is the presence of chakra. There is chakra present in my world, and it does freely circulate through the environment and all living things so trees would have access to it. However, chakra is commonly used in taijutsu and other forms of physical exercise to _enhance_ the strength of muscles. It qualifies as another form of energy to draw from on top of the normal chemical energy of food, so it makes perfect sense that chakra has the power to enhance organic tissues. But what you've described is the opposite - trees somehow produce _weaker _wood in a world where chakra exists. How is that possible?"

Hidan did a double take. "Huh. Wow, that is completely different from what I was thinking."

"What were you thinking?"

Hidan scratched his head. "Do trees start producing seeds and baby trees when they're about this size in your world?"

Konan nodded.

"Oh, that makes perfect sense then, because since chakra is a thing in your world and it makes muscles stronger than you need more baby trees and they can do that when they grow faster."

Konan considered his words. They made no sense now but she was sure they would when he gave her the slower explanation. "Slower, Hidan. You need to explain things slower."

"Oh, well, when you have little plants or tiny animals that are really weak and die fast, they also have babies really fast so their species doesn't die out and shit. If you die a lot, you need to have a lot of babies before you do. So, I was thinking, that it makes a lot of sense because in your world chakra lets you use all kinds of super dangerous jutsus and shit that can kill trees really easily, so maybe since your world is more dangerous for them they evolved to grow faster to have babies faster. Kisame's jutsu still came thiiiiiiis close to uprooting a pretty fuckin' big tree, so it's not like being stronger helps our trees resist being killed that much."

"Hmmm. So you think the benefits of chakra strengthening a tree's tissues are outweighed by the increased danger from animals being more destructive, so the presence of chakra is actually bad for a tree's survival in the long run."

"Yeah, so they go the Kakuzu route instead."

Konan held up a hand as she turned to face Hidan. "Do not tell me what that meant. I want to see how well I know you."

Hidan grinned. After such thorough petting earlier, there was no way this awesome lady could possibly get it wrong. He started counting in his head so he could see how long it took her.

"I think you could have substituted Kakuzu's name in that sentence with...cheapass?"

Hidan let out a sustained squeaking sound. _Less than five seconds! I, oh shit, I think I love her. _There was no one around this time so he threw caution to the wind and hugged her. _Mmmmmm. Pet me. Give me orders. And occasionally treats. Love me. _

Konan let him hold her. Even before seeing the look in his eyes, she did not have a strong desire to do otherwise. Now, she would have destroyed all her most valued possessions to avoid doing so. She was also not psychic, but that didn't matter when he was so close. It was plainly obvious what he was thinking. Since she knew what he was thinking, she was able to decipher his mumbled demands, fueling her desire to stay here with him. After a few seconds she wondered if her Hidan would have had the same desires, or a slightly different list.

Hidan felt his train of thought sink into a swamp. As he released Konan, still grinning like a loon despite everything, he wondered. _Why are we so fucked with?_

_Other Me, where the fuck are you?_

**Konan**

Despite everything, the conversation continued. It wasn't even very stilted.

"There are several other things that theory could explain," Konan murmured thoughtfully. "If you were talking with a Konoha ninja in my world it was a common occurrence for a gust of wind to blow leaves off the nearby trees during a conversation. The leaves were always green and healthy, still capable of service if they had remained attached to the tree. Now that I think about it, it does seem questionable that a tree would shed serviceable parts so quickly."

"What's Konoha mean?"

"Konohagakure: the Village Hidden in the Leaves. I have a theory that something about them is actually connected to the leaves of the trees around them. It would explain why times of strong emotion on a Leaf ninja's part usually included the gust I just described."

Hidan snorted. "That makes perfect sense. Did any other ninjas do that?"

Konan had no idea. "I do not know. I know about the leaves because I saw it; it was not something unusual enough for anyone to bother talking about. Konoha was the only foreign village I ever visited, so I don't know. Other major villages were named after stone, sand, clouds, things like that. It's possible. I just never saw anything."

Hidan looked down at himself. "What village did you come from?"

Konan's steps did not falter. "Amegakure, the Village Hidden in the Rain. Why?"

Hidan's steps did falter a little. "Nothing. Ow. And what village do I come from?"

"I believe it was called Yugakure, the Village of Hot Water."

Hidan was silent. He carefully looked back and forth along the main road before turning onto it to enter town, but continued saying nothing. Konan looked at him uneasily. His brows were drawn together, staring somewhere on the ground in front of him. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but she gave it a guess. _Hot water isn't very impressive from a 'possibly controlling elements of nature' point of view. He's probably disappointed. Probably doesn't consider it a good name. Does he like hot water at all? Given his knowledge of the forest, he might be a little jealous of the people who come from the Leaf village. Disappointment, then, perhaps a little envy. _

She tugged on his hand. Hidan looked up, meeting her eyes. "Let me guess: disappointed and jealous?"

Hidan scowled and looked down again. "Yeah. All the other villages you mentioned, they're named after big things you can find anywhere. Trees, rocks, rain, shit like that. But Other Me's village was named after hot water. As in, a super specific type of water that you definitely don't find everywhere. It was small, wasn't it?"

Konan nodded.

"Figured it was. That name is so small, it had to be. I don't believe this shit. I couldn't even have come from an impressive village like you or these Leaf people? Probably a rundown middle of nowhere shithole. *sigh* Fuckit."

Konan tightened her grip on his hand, squeezing it gently while she tried to think of the right words. "It's alright, Hidan. Your original made it all the way to the Akatsuki, didn't he? There were only ten of us then, which was as high as our membership ever got. There were some very high requirements for joining; we only accepted very strong ninjas, ones who could terrify entire teams of high-ranked shinobi by themselves. You made it into a very exclusive group. You deserved to be there." She let go of his hand. Best not to spoil herself too much. "You were probably the most important one to come out of that village, yes. But you did. Cherish it."

Hidan looked at her with renewed focus. He was silent once more as they walked together, his attention riveted on this ferocious woman who had just called him the best thing to come out of a tiny village. Nothing he could feel now felt dishonest in any way. There were so many things he wanted to say. But of them all, which was the best?

"Hey Konan?"

"Yes?"

"..."

Konan looked at him sideways, watching patiently. His jaw moved soundlessly, opening sometimes as if he had something to say, then closing without a word. His expression relaxed, brightened, clouded, grew annoyed, then confused. It was impossible to trace or guess his thoughts in any one direction. She just stayed quiet, waited for him to come to a conclusion while she kept an eye and ear out for cars. The street was quiet today. This town did not seem to be the center of much activity, if any. They knew better than that, of course. But it was good that there was no overt danger for now.

"I've never had a family before."

She turned, stared. _Family? Before? What does he mean by that? _Hidan just scratched his head. It seemed to be a nervous tic whenever he was uncertain about an interaction. Had he known he was going to say that? Or perhaps he was uncertain of her reaction? She did dislike talking about family as a matter of course. Even in the past, she had a vague idea that hers had been somehow different from the experience of others.

But she'd be damned before she'd let that keep her from accepting his words, his attempt at a bond. "Never before? What do you mean by that?"

Hidan looked back in the direction they had come from. "Well...I kinda have something wrong with my memory, I guess. Kakuzu has said so, and… I had to have had a family at some point, right?"

They turned a corner, Hidan stopping briefly and looking around to make sure of where he was first. Once he had it fixed in his mind he moved almost on autopilot, continuing without needing a response. "It's nothing major, just that Kakuzu says that sometimes I do things and don't really remember them. He's told me of things I've said that don't make any sense, to him or to me when he repeats it. Maybe it's something else, or maybe it has something to do with...well...my first memory is Kakuzu, I mean."

He reached back and ran his hand along the top edge of the scythe on his back. Konan had noticed and briefly thought of questioning why he brought it with him when walking into a town of civilians. She had dismissed this with a note to ask why he was so attached to his scythe at a convenient time. Now, a new idea occurred to her. _It's almost like it's a part of him. Does he even notice that he has the scythe with him now? He would probably notice more if it was not on his back. Where _did _he get it?_

"My first memory ever is of seeing Kakuzu. I think I was on the side of a road somewhere and he was checking to see if I was okay. I was eight. So, I must've had a family at some point because I had to have been born, but I don't really remember. Konan...do you know anything of that?"

She shook her head slowly, parsing through his words. _Eight years old? That really is unusual. _"I'm sorry."

Hidan looked around, getting back to more normal business. At the last possible moment Konan thought of something. "Wait."

Hidan spun around to face her. "Buh?"

"I do know one thing. When your original left his village and became a missing-nin, he did so in a fit of anger at the degeneracy of his village. He murdered half the village and set fires that burned down another quarter. The people that he murdered included his own parents. I mentioned it once around him. His face lit up as if he was remembering the greatest day of his life. That doesn't say anything for sure about you. Whatever led him to be happy about killing them in my world might have been just a minor problem in an otherwise healthy relationship in this one. But whatever it was, there was a problem in his family."

Hidan blinked, absorbing her words. "So...you think there was some shit that was unpleasant? I guess that'd kinda make sense...I never got any surge of unpleasant feelings from wondering about them, so I always figured I must've run away for some other reason. Fuck. If I ran away because they were dicks, that would _suck. _I always hoped my parents were at least a little cool."

Konan looked at him with sympathy in her heart, a feeling she had never thought she would have for this man. _At least I get to remember, and what I get to remember is mostly positive. Eight years old was how old I was when I lost them. If I couldn't even remember what I had lost… Would I miss it less because I wouldn't know what I was missing, or would I miss it more because I had nothing to hold on to, not even a memory? I don't even remember what I felt when I saw his happiness at the memory of killing them. It was a jumbled mess of things. But Nagato or Yahiko, if they had seen that, most certainly would have been enraged. To take and reject what we lost before we were ready should have angered me. But we had something to miss. Could it have been justified in his case?_

Hidan looked up and down the street. "There's the place! Oh, shit, I hope it won't take them too long to make me one. I'd have to start chewing through my arms like Spongebob after a while."

**Sasori**

Sasori paced around the small space he had, measuring out with his feet what it would feel like to move around in, to work in. It was smaller than his workspace at the repair shop, but not by much. In fact, considering the extra room at the shop was mostly the little legroom he could just barely squeeze himself through to get behind the machines, it came out to about the same since there were no machines here. Thank god for being small framed.

As he walked around, crossing from side to side getting a feel for the space, Sasori wondered about the purpose he would put it to. _Konan said my original made puppets. Remind me to ask her what century her world was in, because I can't remember when was the last time puppets were the height of technological sophistication. And he controlled them with strings, apparently. I won't deny how cool those strings are_ \- his fingers twitched now with the memory of just how _right _it had felt to be moving those chakra strings earlier - _but I'm going to be so far behind the times if I stick to those. I don't think anyone would say anything, but I'd be a laughingstock in my own head at least. My original's techniques are no good. Looks like I have to put the strings aside and start over. _

He stopped in the middle, looking around. _Yes, _some engineer's instinct deep in his being told him, _this is a good place. _He looked to the right and easily, as if the vision was gifted to him, saw his tools spread out on the little table on that side. In the back, there was an old generator. If it was still in working order, he could probably modify it to reduce the current it put out so a single machine could be safely hooked up to it. A machine… _Puppets. So several centuries ago. I don't know the slightest thing about robots. But really, there's no working difference between a robot and a machine aside from artificial intelligence, and since I have chakra, that's not a problem. It can work from my intelligence. _

There was one problem, though. The little garage was completely free of materials. Sasori began to draw up a list of what he would need in his head. _I am definitely going to have to hit up someone for money. Oh well. The inventor's curse strikes again._

**Deidara**

The river Hidan had mentioned was easy to find. For one, the trees changed as they approached the large source of water. Dei questioned why he even noticed. _What, was Other Me a botanist? Didn't sound like it. He could have been anything, I guess. Maybe it was a side interest or he needed to pay attention to changing plants to keep track of where he was while flying, yeah. Or maybe paying attention to things like this is just part of ninja life, yeah. Wait… I'm looking for a river so I can get clay. Other Me used clay. Duh! He's obviously had to look for rivers before. Of course I'm good at this, hm. _He snorted and tapped himself sharply on the head, scolding himself.

For another, the part of the river he approached made some noise, so he was able to hear its faint burbling well before he could see it. As Deidara walked toward the sound, he wondered what kind of river it was. His mind called up the image from the front cover of the version of _Huckleberry Finn _that he'd had to read in school. He tried to think of something else because there was no way that kind of river would make this kind of noise or be totally unknown to him, but he had nothing to replace it with so that image remained.

After that mental image the actual river was a disappointment. It was large enough to carry a person away, which was the only standard for calling something a river instead of a stream that had ever made sense to him, but only just. The sound was from where several rocks jutted out midstream, forcing the water around and over them. He didn't see any fish. Dei shook his head. He wasn't here to go fishing. He was here to look at the ground, yeah. Hopefully he would be as good at this as he was at finding the river in the first place.

Deidara looked upriver. Didn't see anything that super stood out to him on the banks. He looked downriver. The dirt he could see looked its usual shade of brown. _What does clay look like? Let's see, hm. I've heard soils with clay are really bad for planting because they have small particles or something and don't hold water well. All the modeling clay I've ever seen was white. Pretty sure they have to add dyes to colored stuff like Play-Doh, yeah. So it's probably white, and soft-looking. So...would small particled stuff like clay go downriver more or be dropped upriver? What was the rule for that? Crap, I hated earth science. Would've paid so much more attention if I'd known the future, yeah. _

After four minutes and several taps to the side of his head as if he could physically jog the memory free, Deidara remembered. _Oh my god, I am such an idiot. Small means light which means the water can carry it farther, obviously. I shouldn't be failing at common sense so much, yeah. I know this ninja stuff is all kinds of weird, but that doesn't mean this world and its normal rules just turned off. Common...sense...still...works...you...moron… _Each word was punctuated by sharp taps to his head. Grumbling, he set off downriver.

Deidara walked high on the bank, staying dry and looking to the side to see what he could. So far nothing. Several more minutes passed. Nothing. Yet more minutes passed. He groaned. He should've asked if Hidan knew any specific place that had clay. _Well it's not his fault. All he could do was point me here, yeah. If I didn't follow his pointing accurately or whatever, what could he do? Give me a guided tour?_

That was when he tripped over a root and fell, twisting to the side to avoid a stone. Unfortunately the side he twisted to was his left, which was the side the river was on. Before he was fully, coherently aware of anything he landed in the water with a splash. Reflexively he held his breath, but he didn't have much of it. He twisted, trying to figure out which way was up. His heart raced, making the breath situation even worse. His stomach muscles tightened to try to stop himself from inhaling. Dei clawed at the water, resulting in absolutely nothing. His vision dimmed, and he tried to hold on to what breath he had.

Even as his vision grew darker and his arms reached out sluggishly, a vague idea traced its way through his mind. Dei opened his mouth and exhaled. In the relatively calm and steady waters, the bubble rose undisturbed. Deidara watched as it drifted past his ear rising behind him. Pushing the last of his adrenaline-based strength into his arms, he pushed himself in that direction.

He lost control and inhaled just as his head broke the surface of the water, triggering a coughing fit that made spots swim before his eyes for the second time today. _Puking, drowning...is there a god I don't know about messing with me, yeah?! _He stopped coughing eventually and reached out to hold onto a solitary rock jutting out of the water as he drifted past. Holding onto that rock, that beautiful, beautiful rock, Deidara laid his head down on top of it and whimpered. _I didn't know I hated water before, but I hate it now, hm. _

Eventually he started shivering and his arms started to burn and Dei realized he'd better swim to shore and get dry. Taking a couple big inhales to get ready, Dei felt his arms become really warm. _My chakra? That feels a lot better, yeah. Thank you body, I super appreciate it, yeah. _Then, judging himself to be prepared, he put his feet on either side of the rock and leaped up and away from it towards the bank.

He landed on his hands, his chakra uncoiling into the water. He took no damage from the flexible surface, but was still dazed for several seconds. _What the…? _Deidara sat up, realizing as he did so that he was actually sitting on the surface of the water. He held his arms up, but lowered them slowly some seconds later as he realized he was not going to fall through. He paid careful attention and realized that his chakra was now up to something in the parts of his body that were touching the water. _FML. This couldn't have happened before?! _Deidara opened his mouth and screamed, his voice echoing through the trees. It actually felt really good.

Not trusting this miraculous strengthening of the water's surface to continue if he put more pressure on it, Dei spread himself out and crawled across the water toward the bank. He panted, shivering and gasping as a breeze blew across him. Suddenly tired, he sat up. Wasn't being tired when you were cold a bad sign or something? He forced himself to his feet and wandered back to the water's edge. At first he had no idea why. _What are you doing, feet? I decided I hate water, right? _But still he stood there, leaning against a tree and trying not to fall down or start crying. He blinked once. Twice. It was after his vision clouded over and he rubbed his eyes with his sleeve, then opened them again that he realized what he was looking at. A streak of light colored earth, smooth and gray under the water a foot in front of him.

Deidara smiled just a touch hysterically. _I really hate water. _And still he stepped forward and sat reaching into the waterlogged ground.

**A/N: I thought of this explanation a while ago. There is just no possible way that the natural environment of the Narutoverse is anything like ours. No. Possible. Way. Every battle scene that takes place in the woods involves the making of new clearings, and yet they still race through the trees uninterrupted, on branches that look like they belong in an old growth forest. It's a miracle the evolution of animals has (mostly) taken the same turns as it did in our world. Chakra absolutely should have altered the very fabric of the world; the fact that it hasn't changed very much is actually one of the few things that makes that ridiculous "it all happened a thousand years ago with stealing fruit from a big tree" twist fit into the Narutoverse at all. Too bad I'm sticking with what was established in the anime, so I can't change too much. If I was rewriting the show itself you bet I would.**

****And now for something completely different: Hidan's backstory. I ONLY WATCH THE ANIME. If it's not in the anime, I don't know it except by osmosis from other people talking about it in my presence. From osmosis, I have learned the following:****

** \- In Kakuzu's backstory, he was sent to fight Hashirama and survived, a major achievement, but the shortsighted ungrateful jerks in his home village locked him up for it since he did technically fail his (impossible) mission. He doesn't trust people's goodwill anymore, prefers money.**

** \- In Hidan's backstory, he is from the village of Yugakure, which at some point demilitarized and turned into a tourist town. This angered Hidan greatly (a tourist town? Seriously?!) so he murdered a lot of people on his way out of there. Sometime after that he became a Jashinist. Sometime after that he joined the Akatsuki.**

**That is all I know from his backstory. For the purposes of this part of the chapter, I had to look up what Yugakure translates to. Aside from that I don't know anything more of his backstory, and I don't want to know. I prefer the version I've come up with.**


	12. Sympathy for the Devil

**A/N: How many chapters has it been since we last heard from this kid? 10? 11?**

**Edited to add: If you're wondering "Wait, weren't Konan and Hidan still on their way to the tailor?" you need to look back at the previous chapter. I had some material that turned out not to be long enough to get its own chapter, so I ended up editing last chapter to stuff it all at the end there.**

**Hidan**

_I...I am...__**Awesome!**_

After a great long while, but not long enough for him to start chewing his arms off (he had never had a habit of biting his fingernails anyway), Hidan now twisted, observing the flow of his very own black cloak as it swirled around his legs in the mirror. The red cloud designs highlighted the movement and encouraged further posing. Konan stood behind him, observing with a small smile. He paid her no mind as he observed the asskicking badass in the mirror before him. _I should wear clothes more often. _

Konan watched as he continued examining himself in the mirror. Her small smile was bittersweet. He really did look much more handsome in the cloak than without it. But still, there was something missing. As he adjusted the collar, trying to make it flare more optimally around his hair, her eyes returned again and again to the empty space between his collarbones. Perhaps it was unconscious habit, perhaps shared preference for as little clothing as possible covering his torso, but either way the cloak was open to just the same amount as she had always observed. There was nothing else to focus on. Everything was the same...except for that space on his chest where a necklace should have been. Konan supposed she should be happy about this. They were different people; it would not be wise to equate them with their originals in her mind. She should be very happy that this Hidan had some accessory (or lack of) to distinguish him by. But the sight saddened her instead.

"Come," she said, turning away. "You have your outfit. There is only so much a mirror can show of it. It's time to put it to the test, see how it holds up with movement, if you would like."

Hidan stopped fussing with the collar and shivered. _Best decision ever. Best fucking decision, ever! This is the only possible outfit for messing with spooky things. Without it…_ Another shiver ran down his spine, this one a genuine prelude to fear. _Without it, they might actually be spooky. But now, the only thing I am at all spooked by is how awesome I am! __**I'm a friggin' ninja. **__Bring it, ghosts!_

He turned without a backward glance and somehow made it to the tailor's desk before Konan did, though she was well ahead of him and he hadn't been running. She had barely even had time to see him cross in front of her. With a swift, fluid and absolutely assured motion he reached for his wallet and set it down on the counter in less than a second. The tailor was startled, but quickly recovered. "Ah, you are back. I take it the product is to your -"

"How much money will you let me give you right now?" was what the tailor was able to decipher out of the jumble of syllables that seemed to tumble from his customer's mouth all at the same time. The man on the other side of the counter seemed a little crazed. His eyes were dilated more than the usual. The tailor shrugged internally. He wasn't an anatomist or anything, he had no reason to care. What he was struck dumb by was the sentence he thought he had heard. That _couldn't _be right. That wasn't the sort of thing anyone asked. He wondered if this customer was trying to pull something.

He only wondered that for a passing thought before wondering if he had lost his mind. If not for this man, his daughter might not have made it out of her "relationship" with that no-good, scum of the earth, devil-worshipping…that boy. So he put on a smile, which wasn't very hard to do, and joked back, "I do not know how much I can legally accept, sir. Up to your entire wallet, _maybe_."

The white-haired man in his new outfit proceeded to open the wallet and extract all pieces of identification in under 3 seconds. The tailor opened his mouth to say something, he hadn't yet figured out what, but only got it half open before the man was out the door, his girlfriend having sensibly predicted he would do this and gone outside to wait already. Just as stated, the entire wallet was left behind. The tailor watched them depart faster than seemed humanly possible, hoping that his store cameras would catch the customer _willingly _doing this with no wrongdoing or unethical business practices involved. Cautiously, he opened the wallet. It was a good thing for his pride, he thought, that he had no other customers or employees to see his knees go weak or watch him slowly stumble to the back and sit down. The tailor had no idea of this, but Kakuzu himself wouldn't have handled the sight any better.

With no prompting, Hidan spontaneously launched forward at his fastest pace. The pavement blurred beneath him. Konan instinctively moved to keep up, leaping to the roof of the buildings he ran next to and keeping up at her fastest pace. It was a pace she did not use without very good reason; this was the fastest she could travel without outpacing her body's own ability to feel tiredness. Damn, it felt _good_. A couple days with no training or anything had her body primed with overflowing need to move, she realized. The flashing, searing pain and heat came again, almost scorching her skin, and her eyes dilated to the point of pain. A vision of battle filled her eyes. She did not notice her pace speeding up. The concept of tiredness no longer existed.

Hidan saw her begin to outpace him with her rooftop leaping. His eyes narrowed, and chakra was automatically channeled to his feet to fuel his special enhanced speed. Without needing to pay attention, Hidan stopped running and started leaping along the pavement, a strange kind of horizontal leap that propelled him at least twice as fast as Konan was racing now. At this pace he covered an entire street to the next intersection in a single one of such leaps. Corners? No problem! His chakra switched with the switchblade speed of practice from propelling to gripping, allowing him to turn literally on a dime while outracing the most modern high-speed trains. The pavement was curiously unaffected to the usual observer, the mostly horizontal direction of force causing damage of the kind that would not leave visible traces. To lower the risks even further, his chakra also spread into the pavement under each foot and steadied it so the damage was less than it should have been.

Konan took to the skies. Without such a technique, there was no way she could keep up with muscular strength alone, no matter how enhanced. She recalled the wings of falcons she had studied, the better to improve her own flight with, and mimicked them as best she could. Hidan continued to disappear into the distance, but at a much slower rate. After a few seconds of this he realized he had not seen her overtake him again and slowed just the small amount he needed to bring them neck and neck.

As one they turned, putting the surrounding asphalt and trees to a new test. Though he sidestepped with the grace of a dancer around a child's bicycle, it blew over and tumbled into the yard of the neighboring house, smashing through the fence in the way. Windows groaned in their frames and if any of them had had shutters before, they didn't now. One family had obviously picked the wrong time to get the roof re-tiled. Another family discovered the hard way that the right time to get their roof so treated was ASAP. Early-leafing trees discovered their mistake as the small buds of their delayed neighbors did not catch enough of the wind to be torn off the branch. These same small buds and branches, those lucky enough not to be severed, split the edges of Konan's paper wings as she passed, affording greater maneuverability to her. She buzzed Hidan's head on his next leap. His laugh was left behind.

In less time than it would have taken to speed read a transcript of all these events, they both found themselves soaring into the air in a straight vertical climb. Konan reached the peak of her climb faster as her wings had greater air resistance, and darted up at a slower speed. Hidan finished his exclamation "-hoo!" as she swooped in and caught him, then lowered them both to the ground. She set them both down outside the impossibly small circle Hidan had taken off from, in front of the next building past the hotel. They had a job to do.

Hidan hadn't needed to go so far up, really, but the temptation of using his chakra had been too great to resist. _Something like that needs one last bang. _Now that Konan thought about it, she had no idea if his original had ever learned that running out of chakra entirely was supposed to be fatal. She reminded herself he had been without immortality once, and even if he hadn't they still taught it in any decent ninja school. She wondered if she should tell his clone now.

Hidan looked up. Well, this one wasn't very impressive. It was just an old single story building with offices in it, like a doctor's office or something. It probably wasn't haunted _at all._ Even so he could not stop smiling as he pulled the door open and stepped into the dark hallway. Konan followed silently.

They checked the first couple of rooms together, then split up at a fork in the hallway. Hidan narrowed his eyes in concentration, trying to monitor himself for any sudden changes in emotional state. When that didn't work he tried something he had not done for a long time. His hands came together to form a seal that was not a seal, each of his hands resembling the "devil horns" hand sign of rebellious listeners of rock music, with the two middle fingers grabbing onto the other hand and the two outer fingers meeting their alternates. His thumbs also met, and the whole gesture was nestled in close to his chest. His fingers had found this to be a comfortable arrangement when he was trying to focus, but he had not needed to focus like this for a very long time.

Focused like this, Hidan walked through the branching collection of old, disused exam rooms. Almost all of the good, useful stuff was no longer present, as it shouldn't have been. There were no files in a filing room he passed. The only piece of useful equipment he could find was a large, weighty scale that probably would have been cheaper to just replace when the doctors moved to a new building. Nothing was knocked over. There was no garbage, everything was in its place, and all the doors in the building were in the same position before he used them. Most importantly, there was no change in Hidan's emotional state, at least not as far as he could tell from his body. His heartbeat slowed perfectly in accordance with stopping intense exercise, his lungs drew breath in the same pattern, there was no tingling of his spine or strange sensations in his intestines. It was boring.

He retraced his steps back to the lobby where the hallways had forked. Konan was already back, the receptionist's area having been much smaller and the staff rooms unimportant. He shook his head and yawned as he returned. She nodded, and they went out the front entrance.

"Hidan?" she asked.

"What?"

"I just thought I should tell you that you should be dead by now."

"Dead? How?"

"You used up all your chakra. Just think - if I hadn't been correct about you having the same abilities as your original, you could have killed yourself with a short race."

"Hey!" Hidan smirked. "If you hadn't been correct, my body would have told me it was running low in shit it needs to live, because that's what bodies do. I'd have been _fine_."

Konan considered this claim. "Damnit. I suppose you're right. Every ninja is trained to reflexively evade attacks, and your original was much too capable of not doing so when he first joined the group. He did not gain immortality very long before that - there is no way he could have trained himself out of such reflexes in that time."

Hidan elbowed her. "Fuck yeah I was right. Listen to the body, the body knows. If I couldn't handle something I'd have some instinct telling me. I'd know."

"No need to gloat. Try not to get too bored with this next one. 'Just another one in the crowd' is the perfect disguise for a true enemy. Stay alert."

The next building had been used for a different purpose, was of a different design, and was the exact same level of haunted as the last. Hidan left with a whine. This pattern repeated all the way to the far end of the street, Konan nodding to herself after each one. Puzzlingly, she also got more and more tense as they continued. Satisfaction. Wariness. Hidan guessed the two could coexist if you expected that there had to be _something _wrong somewhere, but why would she expect that? Just because there hadn't been any ghosts so far didn't mean there couldn't be some by the end of the road. Hidan rubbed his hands in hopeful anticipation. It wasn't too late. He wondered if she had something against ghosts, but of course that made no sense.

He looked to his side. _Does the street usually look like this? _Something seemed different. It seemed like he should know what, but he didn't. He bumped Konan with his elbow. She was no more tense now than she had been at any point after they left the last building, but moved her hands back into a ready position as soon as he made contact. She looked sideways at him.

"Does the road look funny?" he asked.

Konan glanced down, a strangely deep, assessing glance for something so quick. She looked forward, to her other side, even up as she answered in a low voice, "No. Do you sense something?"

Hidan glanced behind him where she wouldn't be able to see, just in case. "It just looks wrong, that's all."

Konan returned to looking at the road surface. "Wrong how?"

Hidan shrugged. "I don't know. It just looks… unhealthy? I never thought of how many cracks it had in it before. Now that I think about it it's the same back home, but I never really noticed."

Konan slowed to a stop and said, in a light conversational tone completely at odds with her words, "I understand just what you mean. _That _appears to be very wrong indeed."

Hidan looked up. Before his eyes, the road disintegrated. He couldn't easily remember just how cracked the road had been outside the hotel, but he thought it would explain his feeling of wrongness if it was less cracked. The road just beneath them was definitely much more cracked, he would've noticed if it had been this bad. But that was a side note compared to what was happening a foot in front of them. A foot in front of them, the cracks in the road grew blurry from being partially filled in with dust. It didn't look like anything had been crushed; the dust just seemed to flake from the surface of the asphalt itself. In fact, there were actual flakes peeling back in some places where they displaced the dust. After a few feet the road stooped somehow as it almost seemed to sink in the ground. A small plant had tried to take advantage of this. It stood perfectly intact if wilted, every leaf and stem fiber gray. No spots, black or otherwise, interrupted its former flesh.

Beyond that...a line was drawn in the ground. What was outside was ruined, as the lifeless plant showed. What was inside was just wrong. The roadside plants were mostly wilted and shriveled. The grass was interrupted by occasional patches of Astroturf, looking like a bad attempt at restoring some illusion of life to this place. Farther in from the road, a tree was growing. Green it may have been, but at what cost? Its branches were stiff in the wind, their usual asymmetry and the healed scars of the thousand natural shocks that flesh should be heir to nowhere to be seen. It looked like a designed tree, done by a compulsive perfectionist. Neither of them was able to stop the natural movement of their eyes away from the road, but their peripheral vision was enough. That wasn't Astroturf.

Leaves from neighboring woodland had blown in, and some had clustered around the roots of the ornamental shrubs closer to the building where they could not be easily raked away. No spot or blemish disturbed their surface. It wasn't hard to guess that none ever would. The ornamental shrubs themselves were flourishing. They exploded outwards, every branch perfectly green. Every. Single. Branch. The interior was dense and dark and still green, though it would never receive light. The underside? Interchangeable with the top. This was a great violation of the natural order.

The building itself looked 50 years old, at least. Its outside was many muted colors, its stone skeleton showing. Whatever imitated life in the surrounding grounds could do nothing for the nonliving. The best it could do was keep disintegration at bay. Not a single fragment lay in the surrounding explosion of grass, though both Hidan and Konan could practically _feel _the lack of structural integrity even from this far away. On a visible level, the odd colors of the stone were the only sign of disuse aside from the missing pieces, which had probably fallen before the building was claimed. It was another sense entirely that told the two shinobi that something was very, very wrong here.

Konan held Hidan's hand. It was foolish to deny aid when one truly needed it. She squeezed it sharply, dragging Hidan out of his reverie. He blinked and began to give his report. "I can't feel anything from here," he muttered almost under his breath. "That's weird, right? Whatever it is that's messing with everything, the grass is _right there_, so whatever it is should be right there too. But I don't feel anything."

"So either the cause of this is projecting its influence this far, or it is nonsentient," Konan supplied. "If it is the first, you might feel something as we approach. I would assume the cause of this is based in the building. Keep your senses open, and stop both of us the second anything changes. If the second, we're effectively dealing with a new kind of natural disaster. It could be chaotic. The procedure is the same in either case, so be alert."

Hidan apologetically worked his hand out of her grip and pressed them together again. "Sorry, helps me focus. Y'know, it might be a better idea for you to go first. How far can you send those butterflies?"

Konan nodded. "Far enough." Once more, sheets of paper began to fly out of her cloak and fold themselves in the air. They flew to the building with surprising speed and vanished around the corners, seeking an entrance. Konan explained, "They are directed by my will and will flutter around filling a given area until locating the target, at which point one will fly back and inform me. I have no idea if they are useful without a specific target, so let's just wait a few minutes. We'll approach then, at the latest."

Hidan wondered how that worked. _So is some part of her in them or something? Or, since she's clearly still using jutsu which means she's using chakra, do they connect back to her with chakra? _On a mission was probably a bad time to ask, so he returned to concentrating. The trouble with that was, he couldn't anchor his concentration to anything. _How am I supposed to look for something when I don't have anything to look at? _He settled for sweeping all the bodily functions that usually changed when emotions did, and in between sweeps trying to think of anything important he'd seen before like she had asked. A minute in, he realized that the effort itself was changing his feelings, causing him no small frustration. He groaned and gave up, lowering his hands and looking to Konan to see if anything was going on.

"Anything?" she whispered.

"I can't see anything when I look for it," he replied. "The focusing is frustrating as shit. And that was after I settled for just trying to sift through my memories, which is a fuckton easier than looking at everything for nothing. I just wanna go in already!"

Konan sighed, then stopped two-thirds of the way through. She forced herself to take a slow, silent breath as she focused on the building. There, it came again. Then...what even was that?

"Hidan," she barked. "Something is happening to my butterflies. I can feel my chakra being severed as they are destroyed, and none are coming back to report. At least one of them is… I'm not sure. It's been taken from me. We're going in."

**Konan**

She doubted any area of the surrounding grounds was free of influence. The patches in the grass thickened and grew together only a few meters in, and the path leading to the front entrance was no better. It looked fuzzy in a way gravel and stone should not even from here, and changed colors at random like something diseased. Even so, they had to go in. She looked up. The air did not seem changed; light passed through it normally. It would have to do. She used yet more paper to give herself wings, and picked up Hidan as she took to the air. It required spending some chakra to boost her strength, but he was on the light side. Thank gods for that.

Hidan tried his best to focus as they swooped in. His first report began as they passed over the ornamental shrubs. "I feel good all of a sudden," he quickly informed her. "Like it's all right, and I'm cared for and watched over and shit. I'm not afraid."

Konan's eyes were drawn beneath him to where little green shreds floated down to join the shed leaves at the base of the shrub. _What, no, who is cutting them? _She'd been too focused on the plants being changed in some unnatural way to notice the signs of a more human touch. No form of growth could have given the leaves cut edges. They swooped closer.

There was a bench hidden behind some bushes near the building. It made a nice, private resting area where one could be free from noise. It would have been more appealing if Hidan hadn't commented, "It's sad now…"

Konan flew once around the entire building, hesitant to commit to a single point of entry. As she flew next to the left side of the building, which was a solid mass of windows, Hidan waved. _Who is he waving to? _Konan stopped in midflight and hovered in the air as she prepared to turn a corner, almost losing her grip on Hidan. A white paper butterfly fluttered in one of the last windows before the corner. As she watched, it repeatedly bounced against the glass, crumpling its leading edges as it tried to get out. Konan wondered if it was trying to report, but with Hidan in her hands she could do nothing. "Hidan, get a kunai and -" the butterfly's wings spasmed like the heart beat of a cardiac arrest victim, failing to keep it up in the air. It went completely still and drifted to the floor, out of sight.

Konan continued her survey of the entire building, slowing to the point where Hidan asked her why she was going so slow. Her response was short and quiet, simple statements. The loss of her scouting jutsu was continuing. The one butterfly in the window demonstrated that at least some of the loss was unnatural, like nothing she had ever before experienced. That meant the situation was unknown and extremely dangerous, which meant they had to take extra care to gather information before entering harm's way. If they went in with no information it would be tantamount to committing suicide. Hidan went quiet at this argument. He could find nothing wrong with it. Everything she said made perfect sense. Yet… Well, she wasn't the type to go off hunches anyway, so he kept his mouth shut.

No more anomalous incidents happened, no more frightening sights were presented to them. Konan ground her teeth together just a little. Where had that thought come from? _Presented? I have no reason to believe there is anyone in the building trying to frighten me. The room was empty, Hidan has detected no malicious intent. Unless… _There were the plants to consider. _Unless I'm willing to believe that we are about to walk into a ruined environment to confront a god. Am I willing to believe that?_

Hidan looked up, concerned. "You okay? You picking up anything? This feels super shitty. Are we going to die? I can't think." _No, _Konan thought, _but you can feel. _Hidan was right. At least part of the reason for slowing down was that her ability to process information was failing. Her hands had been painfully tight under Hidan's arms ever since she had seen the butterfly, but that sight had only accelerated the process. Konan had no idea why, but her bodily processes were rapidly becoming more and more disordered. Her chakra threatened to break, her heartbeat pounded chaotically, and it was becoming harder and harder even to control her thoughts. She was briefly jealous that Hidan's ability was picking up only benign feelings, that it was protecting him. She had no such shield.

Her wings beat fiercely, and Konan was startled to see a wall backing away from them. When had she…? She shook her head, made a deliberate effort to refocus her eyes. This effort was interrupted by a sudden jolt, and she pulled all her chakra together to keep them out of free fall. This close and in physical contact, no amount of shielding could protect Hidan. His entire body started to shake, and she almost dropped him. At the last second she dodged left to avoid impaling him on a branch of a wrong tree. Hidan froze and started to whine at such a high pitch that she would have covered her ears in any other situation. Konan looked around, the environment swimming. Nothing was describable, nothing looked right. She made out a quick line of grey and urged everything, every muscle in her body to head for it. _Get away from here. I need to get away from here. Out. Out. Away. There's the road. Go there. We're going to die and fall and die and crumble and turn grey and zzzzzzzzzzzzzjjjjjjjjjjhhhhhhhhsssssssss - _

The fear lifted. Her eyes flew open and for just a moment took in the world before her. It was a sea of wrong grass. Hidan lay some distance away, wiggling around on the ground to make sense of his surroundings, trying to sit up. Konan realized they were still in enemy territory. _Panic while flying is bad. I can't feel my chakra. There's a nonzero possibility we will in fact die on this mission. _That last thought seemed odd, as if there should be something important about it. Konan wondered what it could be. The thoughts felt as if someone was whispering them directly to her brain. She watched Hidan struggle to his feet. Her heart beat rapidly, the temperature around her too warm. _Someone should turn down the air conditioning in here. I should go find someone… _But when she tried to turn she couldn't. It was impossible to move. _Oh. Right. I'm alone. Bodies only get one occupant at a time. _Wasn't that unusual? Who made that rule?

She reached, tried to move her arm, to reach out for Hidan. He was now looking around. _Movies today have such stupid characters. What does he honestly think he's going to see? The villain is invisible, obviously. The empty room behind the butterfly proved that. Boo. Hiss. _Her arm did move, just a little. She'd never thought about how nice it looked before. She looked down, looked at the interplay of colors over her cloak and skin and nails. It was a very artistic looking arm. The nails could stand to be a little darker, for more contrast. The ends of them were starting to chip. _Someone should be taking better care of this. _

Suddenly her viewpoint changed, tilted. Hidan lifted her up, balancing Konan against the side of his knee. He shook her opposite shoulder as much as he could without making her fall over. "Konan? We have a mission. Wake up!"

_Right, the mission. _Konan blinked, feeling her eyelids echo the movement. _I should investigate the amazingness of the human body further sometime. But he's right, of course. There's a mystery to solve. _She put an arm beneath herself and got to her feet. They stood together, Hidan shaking his head to ward off the effects of the sudden adrenaline withdrawal. He had a headache starting and felt rather tired. Whiplash _sucked_. He wanted to go home and sleep. But fuckit, he hadn't come all this way for ghosts only to turn back now. He reached over to Konan and pulled her by the sleeve after him, into the building. A little residual feeling of happiness that trickled in through his sense helped, and he was well aware it would not survive actual physical contact with Konan. She did not seem to have anything useful to him.

They walked into the front lobby of the building and stopped, looking around. Konan reflexively classified everything she saw. _Intake desk. Portrait. Checkin/checkout forms. Staff rooms. Hallway to patient rooms. Other hallway to different patient rooms. Someone's looking through the checkout forms. That's unauthorized. I should report this to the supervisor, someone needs to get that person assigned to a body ASAP. Floor. Hole in floor. Chairs. _Something seemed like it should be important again. She traced back over her thoughts, finding nothing unusual. _Maybe it was the supervisor. I actually don't have any idea how to get in contact, now that I think about it. Damn. _Someone _needs to be doing something about this renegade. _

She sighed. That wasn't exactly in the job description of any bodied person, so she let it go. They would be assigned or not on their own time. She felt distinctly uncomfortable now. Something was weird and strange. What was it? She looked at Hidan, tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. He seemed to be looking at the renegade shuffling the papers with an unreadable expression. At her touch he turned. "Hidan, something's wrong," she stated. "People aren't supposed to be outside their bodies. That's the rule. Someone needs to do something. If this is the sort of place that tolerates such behavior, we should not be here."

Hidan looked at her in confusion. "I don't see anything wrong with alternative body styles," he huffed. "Why are you being so judgmental? He's not hurting anyone. I feel nothing but a little bit of sadness. If he wants to be sad, that's his own problem."

Konan shook her head. "But in _public?_"

Hidan bristled. "What's wrong with being yourself in public?"

Konan shook her head. Her thoughts were speeding up. The feeling of importance was coming back. Everything around her looked different. A new label came to her. _Hospital. _The wrong plants. The person shuffling the papers. All of these things seemed to be much more important suddenly. She remembered the plants having been important before the crash. Her hands began to shake, but she reflexively stilled them. The butterflies were all gone by now. A lucky third of them had been destroyed. The rest were no longer hers, though she could still feel them. They moved back and forth on the upper floor. "No one wants to see your most private parts, that's why," she snapped. "We have a mission to accomplish. Let's go." And she dragged him over to a hidden stairwell, leaving behind the renegade searcher.

Konan froze for a moment, as if she was being watched, before looking up the stairs. Several steps were missing, and several others looked ready to fall apart at any moment. It was possible that whatever held this building together would not allow the remaining stairs to collapse. But did she trust that force? No, no she did not. Luckily the wall, though covered with flaking plaster, looked much more stable. Konan started forward and found the problem with this plan.

"Hidan?"

"Whazzit? You have some way to get past the missing steps?"

"I would, if I could feel my chakra."

Hidan scratched his head and tried to copy what the others had done earlier when demonstrating their jutsus. "I think I can feel mine. Can I give you a ride?"

Konan swallowed, almost prepared to bow to him if he asked. "Thank you. I will need a ride." She wiped her palms on her cloak and resisted the urge to look around frantically. It would not help.

Hidan found another reason to wear clothes more often as the fabric of his cloak offered a much better grip than his bare skin would have. With her on his back, it felt just like an embrace. Especially when he started walking and her arms tightened even more over his shoulders. He wondered how to get her to hug him more often in the future, and followed her directions over to the wall. He had to put his hands on the wall to avoid losing balance as he climbed onto it, then stood up. The stairwell was thin enough that they were forced to duck. Konan's arms made an effort to relax as much as they could.

She dismounted at the top, since the floor of the upper hallway was miraculously free of holes. Walking forward, she peered to her left. She no longer felt anything to guide her. Had even the stolen butterflies been destroyed? "Hidan, do you see any -"

He was gone.

The hallway was completely empty, just her and the stairwell. Konan had to stifle a cry of some high-pitched sort. She had felt nothing, not the slightest trace of wind from his movement. No sound. Her eyes jerked around, looking everywhere. Where, and just as importantly how, had he gone?

Since he was to her right and she hadn't seen him, she darted down the right hallway. She paused after looking for him in the first room, and looked again. A book sat open on a desk, and in the corner were toys. _New _toys. The room actually looked very nice, the sheets made and everything. A few patches of plaster indicated recent minor repairs. The pillow had a depression in it, the shape of a person's head. As she watched, it changed shape, the side of the pillow in her direction becoming flatter. Konan averted her eyes and continued down the hall, walking slowly because her knees would not allow her to go any faster. _Just a person. One who doesn't happen to have a body, that's all. How dare he, it's against the rules. That was what I thought before, and everything was fine. I was not in any danger. Oh gods I need to find Hidan. Why are my knees so wobbly?_

The second room held a bookcase that could not have been older than a decade, if that. The third down the hall showed signs of someone looking for something in it, but no Hidan. The next room held a potted plant. It was literally all right angles, not having wasted any time pretending to be natural. Right beneath the potted plant was a couple footprints in a patch of dust, the first dust she'd seen in the entire building. They had the same general size and shape as Hidan's shoes. Konan considered the possibility that Hidan was playing some weird form of hide and seek with her, then slapped herself on the face with a particularly violent facepalm. _I'm letting fear make me stupid. Someone is messing with me, but it's probably not Hidan. It's time for the enemy to reveal themself. Release! _

Nothing changed. Her chakra settled back to its normal flow, and nothing in the environment had changed. She had not even felt as if her efforts had done anything, as if there was anything to be thrown off. If this was Genjutsu, it was _at least _on Itachi's level. Konan wondered just why she had walked into this in the first place.

An echo of a sound came from the hallway, a faint whisper of air movement. She turned and stepped out cautiously. There was nothing. No one was in the hallway, and there was no sign that anyone had ever been in the hallway. She looked behind her. The dust on the floor was gone, and the plant was all curves and drooping leaves. Konan froze, then finished her turn to go back in and search the room more thoroughly.

A hand pressed into her back! With the speed of a maniac on cocaine she whirled around and pulled out a kunai all at the same time. An empty hallway of shadows was all that greeted her eyes. The sunlight that bounced down the hall was turning gold. Behind one of the golden beams, a shadow moved. It disappeared before her arm was even fully extended, the kunai bouncing off the wall and clattering on the floor when it should not have done either. Nothing whatsoever happened for the next minute as she looked around, covering the hallway and room with her gaze. Nothing changed. The kunai lay where it had fallen, the plant drooped as much as it had before. The beams of light did not move. Only after a full minute did Konan take the risk of moving, walking slowly over to her kunai and bending to retrieve it.

She was nearly knocked to her feet as a tremendous weight landed on her back, wrapping its arms and legs around her. She did scream this time, but at such a high pitch it was inaudible to human ears. She stood up with no weight on her back at all, turning in circles frantically. Again the hallway was empty. A hand patted her head, brushing against the paper flower in her hair. She reversed her spin and looked up to a blank ceiling. Slow footsteps sounded down the hallway in the direction she had come from, the quiet footsteps of someone who habitually practices stealth but does not happen to be doing so at this exact moment. It came from around a corner. She put a kunai in each hand and advanced, dreading what she would find.

The sounds seemed to change as she approach, becoming a little familiar to her ears. Her chest froze at this new horror. They stopped, then changed direction, moving in a small circle. A board squeaked, a sound that felt like it pierced her heart. Konan narrowed her eyes and held up a kunai, edging to the corner silently. She peered around the corner at an angle, and dropped both kunai as waiting eyes met hers.

"Hey, where the fuck were you? Wait...wasn't that the hallway I was standing near?" Hidan frowned and scratched his head. "I couldn't even feel you. Even when I focused. Pretty sure that's never happened."

Konan received the words but did not absorb them. She walked over to Hidan and grabbed his hand, urged him, "We have to get out of here right now."

Hidan stared at her. He could feel her now, all the deep unsettlement she was experiencing, but did not have enough time to understand. "Wha? But don't we have a…"

Konan brought the exact memories to the forefront of her mind, omitting only the scream. The hand on her back. The sudden weight. Hidan let out a scream that he quickly blocked by shoving his forearm in his mouth anyway. He stared at her, eyes wide. She nodded at him, pulling him back to the stairs. He did not resist at first, but stumbled as they neared the stairs. Konan looked back. He had lowered his forearm, now looking confused. He tilted his head as if sensing something she could not.

"What is it?" she whispered urgently.

"Happiness," he replied.

It took her a while to understand the meaning of that collection of sounds he had just made. She stared, completely failing to connect that word to their current situation in a way she could make a question out of. Hidan blinked at her, equally off balance. He at least was able to recognize the need to let go of her hand, and recovered his wits.

"There's a lot of happiness here," he whispered. "Hope. When I touch the walls I get different feelings. It hasn't always felt like this, this is all new hope and happiness and shit. Something's better, a lot better. Whatever's here is good and shit."

Konan stared at him, still unable to make connections between that and the touch she could still feel on her back. Hidan's face twisted into deep confusion and thought. "So it's good, and also super wrong, and powerful, and scaring the crap out of you, but not me, and I have no fucking idea what the fuck is going on here…" His eyes widened so far she could see a neat little ring of blood vessels around the edges. "Oh. My. Fucking. DICK! You...JERK!"

"Hee hee. You rang?"

Between the opposing influences of the muddled mess she felt, Konan turned around at a perfectly normal speed. There, sitting on the railing around the top of the staircase, was a little boy. He appeared to be only 8 or so years old, and was smiling. Each eye lifted up in a perfectly innocent happy curve that indicated so. Her eyes traced him from top to bottom. His hair was medium length and white, hanging in bunches around his face. A clump of it hung down right between his eyes, over his nose. It was not quite long enough to touch the mask that stretched across his face, dark blue cloth covering his nose and mouth. The mask continued down his neck where it disappeared beneath his similarly dark blue, thick long-sleeved shirt. Said shirt was protected by white plates of armor covering the shoulders and running down the arms on the outside. Leather straps crisscrossed his torso in an X shape, supporting something small on his back. His pants were more of the same color. His shoes, the standard open-toe shinobi style.

Konan felt her higher logic mechanisms pack up and take a vacation. She let them, they had earned it. Hidan's anger stayed but faded to his emotional background as she laughed like he had never heard before. Scratch that; it was more than clear from her personality that nobody, ever, had heard her laugh like that before. It was free. It was careless. He was very worried she was going insane.

The boy stared at her, fascinated. When she eventually stopped, he clapped. She caught her breath and stared at him. "You...you...this world...ah, I have no idea what the hell is possible. Anything could be. I don't have any reason to believe anything's impossible anymore." She looked at Hidan, and he felt even more terrified by the look in her eyes. "What's next?"

Hidan struggled to give an answer that wouldn't send her further over the edge. To be honest, although he had felt her earlier fear he had no idea why the sight of the boy would have been enough to cause her to snap. He had not felt close enough to the limit of what she could handle for that. Was something else going on? "Not much. I don't know what you think this kid is, but he's just a little asshole. Trust me on that one. Yeah, an asshole with some power to mess with reality, but still just a little dick."

He turned accusingly to the boy. "What the fuck, you little jerk? Last time I was aware of your existence you were messing with people in town and playing with zombies. You asked me if I would 'loan' you my forearm!" He smirked, amusement entering his voice. "Did you seriously get so bored that you had to resort to _taking care of people _just to keep yourself entertained? How bored does that have to be? Heh, you deserve it."

"Hey!" the boy objected. "Keeping a people-zoo is cool!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Fuck, you must have been desperate!"

"It's sustainable!"

Hidan still smirked at him. "Yeah, it is. It's way too much responsibility for _you _to be demonstrating. Did something change?"

The boy popped down behind him from the ceiling. "I still got zombies. Wanna plaaaaaaayyyy?" His eyes were curved happily again.

Konan marveled. She had not seen him move at all, yet he had gone from the railing to the ceiling. "What are you?"

The boy was then sitting on her shoulders, his weight too light for his mass. "You can call me Overflow, if you want to call me anything. I'm the local demon. Welcome!"

She looked up at him. "I like my arm. I see no reason to give it up."

He hopped down, standing beside her. "What would I want with _your _arm? You need that to be able to do all the super cool awesome things! How would you be interesting without it?"

Konan tilted her head. "Would you borrow my arm if I was boring?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you would be freaking out and the look on your face would be funny and I've already chewed through all the forearms in my collection."

Hidan growled down at him. "No, you wouldn't, because I won't let you. Stay the fuck away from my friends!"

The boy looked up. "I hope you have enjoyed your stay at the Abandoned Hospital People Zoo! Please come again soon!" He smiled again and evaporated. His body seemed to become shadow as he did so, Konan thought. Hidan stamped his foot in anger.

"He's such a little jerk, that jerk," Hidan grumbled. "But I'm glad to see he's turning over a new leaf, I guess. Let's go home."

**A/N: I start taking my favorite characters and making mental fanfiction with them pretty much as soon as I see a new show enough to do so. I started watching Naruto 3 years ago. The dream that inspired this story, and my use of the Akatsuki at all, was a little more than a year ago. In the time between, I did in fact develop a pretty intricate mental fanfic that I am not at all ready to think of starting to publish, featuring Kakashi and one other character as the main characters. As with all mental fanfics not rooted in a coherent story, it got pretty weird. Some of the weirdest elements of this story are derived from that one. Feel free to ask questions about that other story. Like I said, it's not going to be published any time soon. If I get more time and motivation for this one, I might be able to spare some effort to work on a second story that does not feature Kakashi as a character. It's third on the list at best. Any part of it that is relevant to this story will be brought up in this story.**


	13. Children

**A/N: I have been advised by a more experienced fanfic writer (read: my dad) that there might be some people who read More Demonstrations, More Problems and will take more than a week to read the next chapter after that. So now I have to put notes here and on the last chapter so people know to go back to that chapter if they don't have any idea what is meant when I reference Hidan's backstory or Sasori's money considerations. What a drag... But yeah, Hidan's backstory and Sasori's money considerations were in some material I had to edit More Demonstrations, More Problems to include, so if you read that chapter before the edit please go back and read the new material at the end.  
**

**In other news, unless it's completely unavoidable I am never, ever putting myself through this again. **

**General**

They returned home under cover of darkness. The hospital grounds had already been swarming with darkness, but the road outside had a beam or two fall upon it. Before Konan finished interrogating Hidan on how he knew the demon boy, those beams were gone.

Hidan paused before the door and tilted his head. He mostly felt relaxed, in the way that can lead to sleepiness, and there was only mild pressure on his eyelids. Nobody was asleep yet. He opened the door and walked inside, yawning loudly. There was a dim light down the hall. They went to investigate.

"Looks like someone's been making friends without me," Hidan smirked.

Kakuzu looked up with patient toleration on his face as he dealt cards to everyone else at the table. "I have a right to."

Hidan ran back to the lobby and grabbed the comfy receptionist's chair, bringing it back to the little table in the kitchen and sitting on it backwards. "I didn't know you could. How ya guys doing? What's the game?"

Nagato studied his cards with a deliberately blank face. "It's 500 Rummy. We had to use a second deck. Kakuzu's not playing, so Itachi's winning right now."

Yahiko's face fell as he looked at his hand. "Oh man… Please tell me you guys have better news. Anything to delay my brutal death a little longer please." Hidan winced at that. It was as if his vision had changed just for a moment… He wondered what Konan saw. Yeah, as if she would tell him. He knew better than that.

"We found nothing dangerous on this street, except for all the way at the other end where this little fucker I used to trip over up until the last few months has disappeared to. He's not super dangerous, like he wouldn't kill anyone, but you might want to watch out for your mind around him. Once you know to do that he's fine. He's a little kid, like 8 or so, with white hair and dark clothes and an X of leather straps on his chest."

Kakuzu looked at him suspiciously from the side of his eyes. "What is it with you and little kids?"

Hidan blew a raspberry at him. "I meet interesting people in this line of existence, okay? You make it sound like I'm a pedo or something. If anything, my type's people who are older than me."

Konan smacked him lightly on the back of his head, enough to get everyone's attention. "Hidan."

"Whazzit?" he asked while rubbing the back of his head.

"This is exactly the sort of thing I asked you tell me about, is it not?"

"Huh? Oh, that searching my memories shit? Eh...what is?"

"You didn't tell me you knew any other strange children."

Hidan grumbled. "Oh. _Shit._ Okay, that's fucking it." He turned to Kakuzu. "I've been trying not to be crap at that whole remembering important things deal for all of today, and it's not fucking working. You know all the stuff that's important enough for her to need to know now, right? You tell her." He turned back to Konan. "Yeah, probably should have thought that would be important after the first kid. Whaddaya want to know?"

Konan would have thought deciding what she needed to know about this other child was something he knew how to do. "You should know how to filter the unimportant from the important, Hidan. Has something changed?"

Poorly muffled laughter burst from several spots around the table. Itachi activated his Sharingan, wondering if that had been intentional. He found to his surprise that it was not. Hidan stuck his tongue out at them all. Then he sighed. "Fine. Tell me if I'm leaving anything out."

"The other kid, I met two months ago in an alley while it was raining. He was out of the rain under some kind of awning, and I didn't notice he was there until like a minute after I got out of the rain by sitting under the other awning across from him. In my defense, he was super quiet and hidden by some cans and his outfit was all the right colors to not be super visible, okay? It was like camouflage!

"I got this weird feeling like I wasn't alone after a minute and looked around. I wouldn't have even seen him if I hadn't gotten that feeling. So, there he was, next to a garbage can taller than he was. And he looked sad. As soon as I started looking at him, I could feel sadness, like everything was just far away from him and he didn't know where he was or where anything was anymore. He was just looking at me kinda blank, holding his stuffed snake, just watching to see what i would do. I don't know if he expected me to do anything.

"So I went out into the rain in the alley and kneeled in front of him, and it felt really weird. Like we were the only people who understood how wrong everything was. I saw in the way he looked at me that he realized I understood, but he didn't say anything. He just held out his little stuffed snake. I knew that was a kinda demonstration of something, like trust or some shit, so I petted it and then he took it back. And then I got the feeling the moment was over so I left and found better shelter.

"The kid was toddler age or so. Like I said, the garbage can was taller than he was, he probably could've hidden inside an empty one. He had this long black hair, and snake eyes, and they were purple around for some reason, and he was all in white. Faded white, not bright new bride-on-her-wedding-day white, I would've seen that! It was like a long robe, I couldn't see his feet. And the stuffed snake toy was white with a few black stripes and almost large enough for it to drag even when he carried it on his shoulder. Almost. It had to be seriously pushing the upper limits of comfortable there."

Hidan looked like he was trying to think of anything more, but didn't find anything. "And that was all that happened. That good?"

Most everyone had lain their cards down on the table and paid full attention as he told the story, and the others were holding onto their cards out of reflex as they did so. As the silence dragged on, eyes shifted to Konan. Itachi activated the Sharingan again. It was good for so many things! With it, he analyzed her facial expression. Some muscles twitched near her jaw, revealing that she wanted to say something but was holding back. Some other muscles twitched that would have pulled her lips into a smile. Whatever it was that she was reacting to, Hidan's description had evidently been much more important to her than to anyone else. What wasn't she saying?

Hidan felt a flicker of the same giving of the mind that had made her laugh insanely earlier, and was quite worried. "Konan? Everything okay?"

_This is bad. _Konan thought she might have some understanding now of how the clones had felt when she brought out her jutsu and smashed their perception of their world to pieces. This time, it was her world being smashed to pieces. What was more, it was also the world she had convinced them to trust in. The feeling of unreality probably hid her emotions from Hidan, but she was well aware that a good emotion to be feeling at this moment was fear. _If I tell them I was wrong, they will not trust me ever again. _

She pulled a thick cover across that part of her mind, stilled her body, and lied right to Hidan's face. "Yes. Everything's fine. I was just surprised at that description. I think I have met these two children before as well."

Hidan sat upright. "You too? Hold a sec. Did you meet them, or did they meet you?"

"The second. Why?" Konan wasn't sure whether or not she was surprised by Hidan's ability to grasp the difference.

Hidan blew a raspberry at Kakuzu again. "That's just what I've been trying to get Kakuzu to understand. I'm not a pedo or anything, I'm not looking for little kids to hang out with, they just fucking find me. The demon kid probably finds me extra interesting, and I don't know enough about the snake kid to say for sure, but I am kinda known for helping people who just want someone to understand. If anybody else comes to town, they'll probably find me too."

Nagato jerked. "Demon kid? Why do you call him that?"

Kisame found himself roped into the conversation, for once. "Does that have anything to do with what you said earlier about having to watch your mind around him?"

Sasori sighed. "Please tell me that's just a creative nickname. I've never been religious before, and I don't have any desire to start now. I would be very happy if you kept demons and angels out of what we're expected to be doing here."

Yahiko wondered aloud, "Does that mean there are angels around here? I would love to meet one! Maybe the other- "

Deidara interrupted with a worrying tone in his voice. "Is he dangerous? You said he wouldn't kill anyone, but there's a lot of room below that, yeah. And what was that about our minds, hm? Sounds like we should stay away from him."

Hidan shook his head. "There is no staying away from him. He shows up where he wants. And no, seriously, I meant it. He doesn't like to cripple people for life or anything if that's what you're afraid of."

Yahiko brightened. "So we should try to be friendly or at least ally with him then! I mean, if we can't fight him, that's really the only option, right?" He looked around eagerly for support.

Sasori sighed again. "You're all getting in over your heads. What kind of 'demon' is he?" Sasori didn't usually like to, but this was the sort of claim that begged for finger quotes.

Kakuzu pointed out, "Maybe if you all stopped talking you'd get some answers."

"Does he want anything from us, hm?"

"Why would he want anything from us? Even if he's not a friendly one, at least he'd be so much more than us regular people that he wouldn't be able to like anything we had, right?"

"Believe it or not, _Prince, _there are a lot of people in the world that like to do bad things just for the fun of doing them. You always need to keep your eyes out for people like that."

"Everyone return your cards. Itachi wins."

"Don't talk to him like that. That was a good argument earlier. What could we find out about our situation with a demon helping us?"

"What makes you think he knows anything? Did our originals' world have demons? He probably didn't come from there, so what would he know, yeah?"

"And what does this other kid have to do with it? Does he know the demon boy? They could be working together. Maybe they want something out of Hidan, or out of all of us. I wouldn't trust either of them."

"Nobody here knows what they are talking about. What are we even talking about? What happened with this kid earlier?"

Konan placed her hand firmly on Hidan's head and pressed down, stopping the flow of questions. Some glares were shot at the last second, but their ninja heritage kicked in. She was already a little proud of that. "I refuse to stay up all night debating the possibilities. That said…" She launched into a full description from the moment she and Hidan had stopped before the ruined portion of road. All enmity disappeared by the time she was finished describing the hospital and grounds. The room hushed as even little movements and fidgeting stopped, all energy being devoted to taking mental notes instead. She could have sworn even the wind and the building itself were dead silent as she finished with their actual meeting with the boy. A leaf against a window could have been heard in the silence that followed.

Nagato raised his hand.

"Yes?"

He cleared his throat. "I've put together a list of everything that matters about that story right now. I also don't want to stay up forever, so… One, Overflow's a strange name. Two, we need a full report on his abilities. Three, it sounds like he's been really existing here, in this world, really living a life here for a long time. How long? Four, it sounds like he was telling the truth about being a demon. That or some other supernatural entity. And five, sounds like we should help him. If we're the next most interesting thing and _that's _what happens to everything around him, we should help him stay there at the hospital and not move anywhere near us. It doesn't sound like he has any company. Counting him as an ally could be a good idea."

Konan tapped Hidan on the head again. "You are directing me to the nearest place to buy a calendar tomorrow morning."

"A calendar? Why?"

_So I can count how many days it takes to realize that Nagato used to be the leader of the Akatsuki._

"Eh, never mind. Lady wants a calendar lady gets a calendar I guess."

_Shouldn't be long now._

She nodded at Nagato and left the room.

The redhead looked around, puzzled. "Hidan, do you know what that meant?"

Hidan smirked. "I felt very impressed. It was a good nod, she thinks you're cool."

Nagato blushed faintly. _She was impressed with me? Wow... I haven't stood out so much before, to anyone. Maybe I was just meant to be a ninja?_

Yahiko shrugged. "Everyone thinks that. Maybe your original was in charge or something before. You do speak better than I do, it has to be."

Nagato got up from his seat in a hurry and turned to leave. "M-maybe. That'd make sense, if I was in charge of something. Never thought about it before. I should get to bed." _He thinks I'm that impressive? Yahiko…!_

Sasori mentally drew a string between two seemingly unrelated events. _Interesting. When Yahiko speaks, both Nagato and Konan have to get away. He says he is bad at speaking, but his words clearly have power. She said some of us have characteristics that are very different from regular people. Maybe Yahiko has a special voice-based power. _

He wasn't the only one wondering this, though he was the only one putting such a positive spin on it. Yahiko did not miss the purpose of Nagato's movement. He looked down. _Is there something wrong with me?_

Hidan wanted to reassure his new friend, but couldn't think of how to do so without revealing shit that was really none of his business. It was Nagato's business, but he wouldn't say a thing right now, and it would take a while to convince him to. _Fuck. If people just talked more, I wouldn't have to choose. How can I…?_

Nobody was really interested in cards any more, and it was getting late. The accumulated feeling of pressure on his eyelids from everyone there made Hidan want to just slump forward and go to sleep immediately. He tried to keep them open and think of things. As everyone else was leaving, he thought of a way out. With some effort he got to his feet and pulled on Yahiko's sleeve just as the other man was leaving, jolting him out of his low mood.

"Sunshine."

"Hey. What is it?"

"I don't know what's going on with Konan, but I saw Nagato when I said Konan thought he was cool. He turned a little red. Doesn't look like he's used to people thinking he's amazing. He didn't leave because of anything you did, it was just that you said _everyone _thought that. That was a good kind of running away, not anything like I could feel you thinking just now. Don't feel sad, Sunshine."

A smile spread across Yahiko's lips, turning his whole face from downcast to beaming. "Hidan! Thank you." He opened his eyes after a few moments and released Hidan from the reflex hug. "I'm glad Konan invited us all here and I met you."

Hidan looked Yahiko up and down with as much of an assessing gaze as he could have. "Is that good or bad…" he mumbled.

"Is what good or bad?"

Hidan smiled sheepishly. "Just wondering whether you do that with Nagato too, or if I'm just special."

Yahiko laughed. "Of course I'll hug him too! It's just that we've been together so long, I don't need to. I wouldn't need to tell him I'm glad I know him, he already knows."

Hidan stared. "Okay, how _the fuck_ are you still single?"

"Eh?"

Hidan shrugged to mask the fact that there was only so much he was willing or able to tell this man who trusted him with pretty much everything. Even with little to no practice hiding guilty feelings, he was able to manage. "The only reason you don't speak as well as you want is because your face makes up for all that and more, you like to take care of people, you are handsome as shit, insert a whole other list of positive things here, why the fuck haven't you met someone who liked you and you liked them back before now. I see no reason at all."

Yahiko flushed. "Well...it just, I don't know, hasn't happened?"

Hidan sighed. "Fuckin' shame. Maybe now you're doing different things, your luck'll change."

Yahiko nodded. "That would be really, really good. But, uh, what did you mean with my face?"

Hidan could feel a dragging influence almost literally pulling him backward from everyone else going to sleep. "Ask Nagato. I can't...uh, gnight."

Yahiko helped him stumble to his room, and was delighted to discover that Hidan's room had soft carpeting. _It would make a good place to sit and plan things and talk, _he thought as he lowered Hidan to the floor. _We could all spend time together, the three of us. I'd really like that. How does he lie down? _Yahiko rightly figured that Hidan might be more disturbed by his scythe being taken away then he would by anything else and lowered Hidan onto the carpet on his belly. _We could be true friends!_

Hidan was already mostly asleep. His movements as he pulled his hands up to surround his head were stiff and slow. Yahiko grabbed a blanket from the bed and covered him. Hidan purred, already seemingly in the middle of a good dream. Yahiko was careful to shut the door with the softest of clicks as he left. _No, I'm wrong. We already are true friends. _He had never been happier to be wrong in his life as he quietly walked away to the room he'd chosen as his own.

**Yahiko**

_He rode high in the branches of a sunflower. Light glinted off its petals, solar power fueling its steady journey. He wondered why he'd been assigned a vehicle best described as "steady" for his race. As he had every two seconds since the race started, he rubbed his hands behind the nearest pedal and urged "Can we go any faster? I'm going to lose." He'd managed to sneak a wire under the tail of Nagato's elk, giving himself a little boost, but he felt bad for this and it really wasn't giving him enough of a boost anyway. The wire stretched beyond its limits until it stretched no more, and Yahiko started to cry. He knew what he was doing. He'd always known. What kind of person could he be? He reached forward, trying to cut the link, trying to be a good person, but the wire refused to cut. The sunflower wasn't even moving any faster. Why? Why had he ever thought of doing this? The wire responded to nothing. He sat back against a soft golden petal and continued to cry. _

_A woodpecker drilled him out of his thoughts. He barely managed to stay on his leaf. Turning in fear, he saw a woodpecker drilling its way through the sunflower just beneath the flower. Its beak rattled, making the sound of an artillery burst. Yahiko got up and started towards it, trying to drive it away. He would lose for sure if the flower was burst! He was too late. The sunflower had already started to deflate, the leaf he was on shriveling, the leaf stem connecting it to the main stem narrowing. He looked up in terror. He hadn't realized he was so far below the flower before. How stupid could he be? He ran, racing across the leaf towards the leaf stem. The leaf stem was so thin now, so thin. Yahiko carefully placed his feet as he edged his way slowly across it. He was too slow. He would fall. He knew this and tried to edge faster. The stem dried to a thin line. He balanced like an expert tightrope walker. The light turned red, then darkened into night as the stem ceased to exist beneath him. The woodpecker rattled off another artillery burst so loud the entire world must have shook, a sound that tossed Yahiko back and forth in the air. He flailed against the waves, held his breath to keep from drowning. _

_He couldn't hold his breath for more than two seconds before it gave out and rushed out of his lungs without his permission. This was it, the end. The woodpecker rattled again, nearly smashing his bones to pieces. How could it…? Yahiko tried to reach for the bird but couldn't. His right hand would not move. The wire wrapped around it too tightly. Yahiko looked up to a shimmering light. The shimmering light seemed to reflect an image of his childhood home. He was a moron. He owned that bird. He'd been responsible for training it. Konan would never forgive him, never respect him now. How would he explain himself? She would surely cut him on the cheek for this…_

He gasped for air, wishing for just one more breath. It came easily, and another. Too easily. The air seemed more airy, somehow. Yahiko stretched his arms and opened his eyes. It was just a dream. Just a dream.

Still he shivered. It was dark early morning. He didn't want to check his phone for what time it was, knowing that the sudden light would burn his eyes. Instead he pulled the covers over himself, turned on his right side. Was that what other people meant when they talked about nightmares? He wasn't feeling horrified, really, just a little empty. He was very sure he knew what the dream meant. It wasn't something he wanted to think about very much, and he didn't believe talking about it would bring any results. Best to just not think of it.

Still the feelings from the dream continued to bother him. Yahiko got up, rubbed his eyes and checked his phone. It was a little before 4 in the morning. Now that he was committed to being fully awake, the fear and other things fell off like unneeded hair. His stomach woke up too, and Yahiko rubbed it with a small smile. He wondered who, if any of them, had a vehicle that could transport a refrigerator all the way out here. Someone would probably get one today, since they'd all pretty much agreed to stay.

A small sound, like someone bumping the wall with their knee carelessly, came from the wall to his right. It was the one he shared with Nagato. Yahiko unconsciously focused, and was able to discern some noise. He wondered what Nagato could be dreaming about and hoped it wasn't like his own.

His stomach issued another complaint, and Yahiko tilted forward and stood up slowly. He'd have to go back to his regular place and get breakfast. To that end, he slipped out the door as quietly as he could, and tried not to disturb anyone as he walked down the hall. Thanks to Hidan pointing it out before, he could be quite sure driving away would not disturb anyone.

_Hey, it's...think of the devil! _He saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and turned in time for Hidan to catch up with him. He whispered as quietly as he was able, "Hey. You're awake too?"

Hidan rubbed his eyes. "Thanks to you, yeah. Anything you want to talk about?"

Yahiko thought of the dream. He supposed it was a good idea to talk about things sometimes just to get them off your chest, and Hidan _was _good for that. Yet… "No, not yet I mean."

Hidan covered his mouth as he yawned. "Mkay. Just so you know, I'm inventing a policy right now that if my sleep is messed with by the same person three nights in a row, I get to demand some small fraction of whatever the fuck is going on. Even if literally all you can say is that you're scared and want your mommy. No offense - I just thought less than five seconds ago that that would be a good policy, so congratulations, you get to be the one to announce it."

Yahiko nodded. "Thanks for the honor. I don't think I'll have to confess anything. It's nothing that bad."

"Better not be. Thank you, anyway." Hidan gestured at himself. "We kinda had more important things to talk about last night, so I don't have a grudge against anyone for not commenting on my amazing new outfit. It would have been nice to be conscious enough to take it off before, but thanks for at least waking me up this early so I don't do any more damage."

Yahiko smiled at him. "It looks very nice."

"Go eat something. Now I'm hungry."

"Yeah, we should get a fridge in here, shouldn't we?"

Hidan mentioned how he and Kakuzu had thought of that the day before, before he had accidentally revealed that things weren't quite as anyone thought. Whoops. "But yeah, we were kinda thinking before that of how Kakuzu's truck is pretty big, so I figured we would be the ones to get it. I'm gonna have to dig up a treasure chest or two to pay for it anyway, so what do I care."

"Treasure...chest? What are you saying with that?"

Hidan lifted his fingers to count. "Step one: acquire a shit-ton of money. Step two: bury it six feet under. Step three: try to remember where you put it." He hmmm'd in thought and muttered, "That last one's the hardest…"

Yahiko's stomach rumbled again. Hidan glared at him and said, "You better not have given my stomach any ideas." Then he turned away and wandered down the hall, pausing at the corner. Yahiko heard him mutter, "So do I be a total perv and spy on some more good dreams, or go back to bed?" before he left.

He wondered on his way out just what kind of life Hidan had. _He's so...I don't think weird's the right word. Disjointed, maybe? How exactly is he?_

**Sasori**

His alarm clock made a ticking sound, a sound like the tapping of some small thing's clawed feet against wood. That was in fact the exact video he had used to program the alarm function. He no longer remembered whether inspiration had struck before or after, or if it was a lucky guess. No matter. The sound was very effective. Sasori opened his eyes and reached out a hand, softly pressing the button on his phone's screen to turn it off. He lay there for a few more minutes looking at the light before sitting up.

There wasn't any concrete reason to get up on the weekends at this time. He had no responsibilities, no social appointments, no daily regimen. And yet, he was an engineer. _Like father, like son. Like author, like creation. _Even the wildest partier would have to admit this did do wonders for his daily efficiency. When there was no reason to be getting up, one had to be invented.

He recalled all he could about yesterday's considerations, and walked over to the desk on the opposite side of the room. The single sheet of paper inside it contained a crude blueprint that nobody else could have deciphered, as drawn and redrawn as it had been, several similar sketches, and a list of basic materials that he was sure to need no matter what. In the privacy of his own room, he smiled. _A space for me and my own things, finally. Did I want that before? _The fact that he was reflexively smiling seemed undeniable proof that he had in fact wanted his own space before. _Good to find out now instead of later. I should only hope that everything I'm hiding from me can be discovered in such a timely fashion._

On the reverse side of the sheet he'd done some calculations of how much he would have to spend for the basic materials alone, along with a price range for the materials he couldn't quantify until he finished his blueprint. He imagined showing the paper to some money-minded person, watching the expression on their face. _Not a bad idea, if I bring Deidara and a camera along with me. _That was a silver lining to the thick, stormy mass of cloud that the numbers represented.

Sasori continued to sit, his eyes staring at nothing in particular. _How am I going to afford this? I don't get paid that much, don't have anything significant saved up, and I most definitely do not want to start out by indebting myself to everyone in this entire building. _He wondered how Konan would react to the news that he was going to have to delay making anything. Sasori realized with a jolt that he was now looking firmly at the ground, face drawn and throat feeling a little constricted. _I must have been really looking forward to making something impressive. This hurts. Why? _

There was a knock on the door. Sasori composed himself and called, "Come in." It was strange enough that anyone would want to disturb him at this early time, since Deidara had a much different schedule. His eyes widened even more when he saw that it wasn't Deidara, it was Hidan. _Him? Why is he bothering me now? _Sasori couldn't think of any business they had unresolved.

Hidan leaned against the opposite wall next to the door. "You? Fuck, if even you're… there goes my weekend."

Sasori replied, "What do you mean by that?"

Hidan groused for a few seconds before sighing. "You've heard of my issue, right?"

_Issue? He hasn't mentioned any problems. _"No, I do not believe I have."

Hidan scratched his head, puzzled. "Huh. Could've sworn Konan had to make some mention of it last night when she was telling yall about our adventures and shit. But anyway, the issue is that I can feel what any kind of feeling being around me feels. That's an issue because this is the second time this fucking morning that I've been disturbed by people. I'm strongly reminded of why I didn't sleep near other people before. I don't want to have this same problem again, so could you please fucking get out with it. If you feel like it, of course." His vocabulary made it sound like more of a problem than his face did. He folded his arms across his chest and waited patiently, no trace of more than mild annoyance in his expression.

Something in Sasori's guts tingled. He had no idea if it was bad tingling or good tingling. _Do I like having people worry about me or not? _He'd never thought about the possibility of other people being concerned about him before, so he couldn't say. Was that unusual?

He decided now was not the time to wonder about that. Now was the time to be solving problems. He cleared his throat. "In order to build something like what Konan suggested, I am going to need a lot more money than I can possibly get. I may never be able to build anything impressive. I...I think I was looking forward to. I wanted to. Not to mention she'll be disappointed." The mere mention of it brought the feeling back. Sasori's throat constricted again. _What is wrong with me? I'm getting worked up for nothing. Or...is this the sort of thing people should get worked up for?_

He blinked away any sudden blurry spots that may have appeared in his vision and looked at Hidan. Hidan scratched his head. He said nothing for a few moments. Then, before Sasori knew it Hidan was sitting on the bed next to him giving him a sideways hug.

_What the- _It felt kind of nice. _This is not what I signed up for. _Sasori was only tense for a few seconds before relaxing. _Okay, get _off _now. _It really did feel nice. Hidan didn't let go then, holding it for a few more seconds until just before Sasori would have started to feel really uncomfortable. Then he unwrapped his arms from Sasori's shoulders and sat back.

Hidan explained, "I suck at talking about feelings. I am amazing at doing body-actions about feelings. Sorry. Did it work?"

Sasori noted that the tightness had gone and he did feel more relaxed overall. "Hm. Seems like it did."

"Cool shit." Hidan clapped his hands. "I have good news." Seeing Sasori's eyes shift to his, he grinned. "I'm pretty sure I have enough treasure chests to cover whatever you need. You don't have to worry about shit."

Sasori found himself looking at Hidan in a way he had not looked at him before. "You have...treasure...chests?"

Hidan's grin dropped. "What the fuck is it with you people? Yes, I have treasure chests. People pay me in physical money. I don't spend it on shit. My wallet only has so much space in it. Therefore, I buy a metal box and bury the shit when I run out of space. What the fuck else am I supposed to do? I don't know anybody who needs money that badly!" He paused, and smiled. "Well, now I do I guess. Metal boxes suck, and I worry about them rusting and all that shit just being wasted. You have no idea how stressful it is to worry about that." He started bouncing a little and looked at Sasori with pleading eyes. "You'll take some of it so I don't have to be concerned, right? Pleeeeaaase?"

Sasori's mouth was hanging open. _What sort of being is this? He can't be human. No human cares about money that little. He must be… _Sasori couldn't think of anything. _What are you? _

Hidan was still pleading, so Sasori took the easy way out. "Sure. I would be happy to take your excess money off your hands."

Hidan grinned at least as wide as Yahiko had ever done. "Awesome! Fuckin' shit, thank you! You know how my memory sucks, right? Like I said to Kakuzu yesterday? Yeah, it sucks even worse to try to remember where it's all buried. You're a mindsaver!" Again Sasori found himself pulled into a hug.

Well, that was a thing to consider. "You _do _remember where it's buried, right?" Sasori asked as he patted Hidan's back awkwardly.

Hidan released him from the death-hug. "Yeah, most of it. Yahiko mentioned how we need to get a fridge for this place so we can eat, so I started thinking of it then. By now I've remembered a good bunch of them. The rest'll probably come back once I'm out there again." He looked proud of himself, like a child that has earned a great privilege.

_He seems to get along well with Deidara. They probably have a lot in common. Maybe…_ Sasori smiled and inquired, "Do you by any chance know someone who values having a lot of money?" Hidan's eyes grew wide. "And a camera? And would you mind bringing Deidara along?" Hidan had started nodding at a pace that would make the springiest bobblehead on the market jealous by the first word. "I have a sheet right here where I figured out how much money I would need as a bare minimum you see, and I guesstimated a range of cost I would need for the materials to put something together, so that and everything you just said to me about your treasure chests…" Hidan fell off the bed and smacked his head painfully against the floor.

Sasori wondered if he'd gone too far. "Are you-"

"_**YES.**_"

Sasori flinched back out of a deeply buried, impossible to overcome primal reflex of the sort that urged his distant ancestors out of the path of dinosaur stampedes and lava flows. "Okay," he squeaked.

Hidan's head appeared over the edge of the bed as if he was playing Peek-a-Boo. His eyes turned towards Sasori with a hunger in them. Sasori tried not to make any sudden movements as he handed over the sheet.

Hidan looked it up, down, and backwards, working out precisely which number was which. "Hehe. Yes. _Oh yes. _Ahaha. Ahahahaha!" Sasori thought that, if the demon boy was being friendly now, Hidan would also get along well with him. "Oh. _Sasori. _You have no idea. Fuck you. Just...fuck you." Hidan's feral grin seemed ready to take a bite out of some small creature that probably resembled Sasori's most distant mammalian ancestors that had lived alongside dinosaurs. "No worries, I'll _bring it back…"_ The last few words he said in almost a singsong voice, before getting up and dancing out of the room.

Sasori sat for a while longer wondering what he'd done.

**A/N: To clarify in case I haven't done enough to make their voices distinct: In the question-overload before Konan told them the full story of her exploring the haunted hospital, Deidara spoke the lines ending with "hm" or "yeah," Kisame was the one talking about people who just like to hurt others and wondering if they were working together, Yahiko was the one wondering why a demon would want things from them, Nagato was the one who said "Don't talk to him like that," and Sasori was the one to ask what they were even talking about. Kakuzu briefly interrupted to ask for his cards back. **

**I had so much fun writing this. Can you tell? Heehee.**


	14. Merry Christmas

**A/N: Merry Christmas to all, and enjoy your short chapter.**

**(for future reference: today is October 13th)**

**Itachi**

Itachi was brushing his teeth and contemplating the extent of the boundaries of space-time when he heard giggling. He carefully held everything inside his mouth as he went to the door of his room and looked out. Deidara was some distance down the hallway, laughing hysterically. He seemed to be catching his breath, one hand on his knee and the other balanced awkwardly on his knee while holding a camera. He recovered and raced away just as Hidan came running past, also laughing hysterically. The two of them fist-bumped and disappeared.

Itachi looked in the other direction down the hall, just in time to see Kakuzu run past him. His masked face was definitely not in the mood for laughing, and he ran with the direct path of someone with a mission. With surprising speed, he disappeared after them. Now that he thought about it, Itachi didn't actually have the faintest clue how old Kakuzu was.

Nothing more happened, so he returned to the bathroom in his room and finished brushing his teeth. _The extra time was probably good for my teeth. I wonder what about the human mind can make such a thing seem as important as the possibility of another universe…_ And he resumed the track of thought he had been on before.

After reaching some satisfactory conclusion that made a good stopping point, Itachi put on his clothes and left his room. Hidan had evidently decided to lead Kakuzu on a merry chase instead of losing him, so Itachi stayed in his doorway until they had passed. Then he went looking for Kisame.

He did not find Kisame, but he did find Konan standing in her doorway, keeping an ear out for overly excited passers-by. She stepped back, inviting him in to shelter just as Hidan threw himself down the hallway at a speed that suggested further material for consideration. But that wasn't important right now.

Konan waited until Kakuzu passed, and was it a trick of Itachi's eyes, or did Kakuzu seem to be enjoying it? Konan looked faintly amused as she turned to Itachi. "Yes?"

Itachi briefly organized his words in his head before speaking. "I believe I have discovered a clue to our existence," he began.

Konan's ears pricked forward, primed to listen.

"I was thinking about multiverse theory in the bathroom after I woke up," he continued. "Multiverse theory states that there is no reason why there should only be one universe, this one we happen to inhabit. We could live in one of many, possibly an infinite amount of universes. I wondered if that had anything to do with your claim that we are clones of people from another world. The existence of chakra represents a significant departure from the laws of physics that govern this universe. There isn't any way I can think of to explain this, unless chakra is a perfectly natural part of a different set of physical laws."

"A different universe," Konan finished.

Itachi nodded. "It seems suspicious that your world should be otherwise similar to ours, but perhaps universes that are close enough for us to happen would also be quite close enough to influence each other."

Konan narrowed her eyes at Itachi. "Which do you think is the influence?"

Itachi did not rise to the bait. "There is no way to know."

She could respect that. A shinobi must always be able to acknowledge when they need more information. She dismissed him with a sharp nod of her head. As Itachi was on his way out, he turned back and asked, "What is going on with Hidan and Deidara?"

Konan shook her head. "Something normal for them."

_Obviously. _Itachi left without another delay.

After dodging around Hidan and Kakuzu having a paradoxically relaxed argument ("You better damn well have deleted those photos," Kakuzu growled. Hidan stuck out his tongue and cheerfully replied that he'd emailed them to himself, so haha no), Itachi bounced around the building looking for people. Sasori didn't know where Kisame was, but when asked about Hidan and Deidara shook his head ruefully and insisted he'd tell all about it _after _he got a paper back from Hidan. Deidara was only too happy to show Itachi a photo of Kakuzu that temporarily banished all thoughts of universes from his mind. _Wow. _Okay. He was no help when asked about Kisame, but Itachi had by now figured out where his friend had to be.

Itachi sat on a rock next to the banks of the small stream where they had practiced water jutsu yesterday and watched the sun glint off the water's surface. The stream was full and healthy again, even with some damage done to its banks. The tilted tree's buds were starting to open. A squirrel leaped from branch to branch, invisible but not stealthy. The sunlight flowed together in a fishbone pattern typical of running water along the side of the road. Itachi would have googled what caused that, but he didn't have the slightest idea how to phrase such a query. A flash of something silver drew his eyes to a collection of dark rocks beneath the water's surface. Whatever it was did not reappear, and Itachi could not see it even with the upper level Sharingan activated. Kisame began to shift beside him.

Just before he let go of the regular Sharingan, it picked up a small motion to his left. It was a small gray fish, somehow maintaining its position in the water steadily. Though it wavered, its color was so well designed that Itachi could not have seen it with his normal eyes. It was solid, but blended with the patchy pebbles beneath it. It wavered, yet he had trouble seeing its motion clearly. This was the product of a beautiful, well-ordered universe. Kisame sighed.

If he was in the mood to care about the universe's beauty, he didn't show it. The shark man appeared to be looking just to have something to look at. Itachi did not need to see his face to know Kisame was elsewhere. Yet, somehow his presence must have registered, because Kisame was growing increasingly annoyed.

"I'm not in the mood for talking, Itachi," he warned. His hand tightened, paused, then relaxed. His other hand was wrapped unconsciously around his abdomen.

Itachi reassured him, "I am not here to ask you to." They both continued to stare at the water. A flock of birds making the usual birds-establishing-dominance spring ruckus was approaching. They sounded like blackbirds, though there were several songs mixed into the noise. Just before they would have passed in an unruly mob right over the humans' heads, the flock turned and shifted deeper into the forest. Itachi thought he could almost hear the silence. He was intrigued now, as he had occasionally been intrigued before, by the fact that true silence did not exist. What was called the sound of silence was only a different kind of noise. Perhaps a certain subgroup of deaf people were the only ones with any understanding of true silence.

_What difference is there between the sound of the outside world and the sound of your own mind? _Itachi considered this. He supposed the difference was in how the conscious mind perceived the noise. There was no difference, but most people imagined that they _felt _a difference. And, of course, the sound of one's own mind was much more powerful than the sound of the outside.

In that spirit… "I am here to tell you something," he whispered to Kisame. Without waiting for a response, because that would be violating his promise, Itachi continued with, "It's just as well you were not in the hallways. Hidan and Deidara found great humor in doing something, I'm not sure I want to know what, to Kakuzu. I had to duck into doorways to avoid being run over as Kakuzu chased Hidan all around the building several times. A man your size would have been run over for sure."

Kisame smirked and muttered, "Must be Hidan's influence."

Itachi nodded. "If so, he must have exercised his influence over Sasori beforehand. Sasori admitted he knew what was going on, and he had given Hidan a paper of some kind."

Kisame shuddered. "Is every reasonable person in here losing it?"

A deer crested the little rise on the other side of the stream. It walked stiffly, pausing with a foreleg in the air and looking straight at them. Its short fur quivered in tense nervousness along its flanks, its tendons prominent and visible. Even without the acuity of the Sharingan, Itachi watched its nose twitch, its ears flicker one moment and arrest themselves the next. Yet it did not move, and after only a few seconds its foreleg lowered to the ground. This was a deer that was acclimated to humans. She continued to stare at them, then approached the stream and lowered her head to drink. Itachi watched the doe as she watched not him, but Kisame. Her shoulders tilted asymmetrically. This, too, was proof of a well-ordered universe.

Kisame looked back for only a few seconds, then returned to the water. "Don't ask me what I'm thinking of," he said in a low tone of voice. "Not even I know well enough to say. Just wait until tomorrow. It'll be...different."

Itachi mumbled "Mhm." The doe stopped drinking and raised her head, still looking at Kisame. He was indifferent. Itachi thought of a joke. "I'll leave you two alone together then," he said as he rose to his feet. Kisame shot a quick glare in his direction. The doe spared Itachi a quick glance. Then they were behind him, and then he was gone.

**General**

Hidan and Deidara had, unwittingly, done everyone in the base a service. A flurry of email addresses were passed around the base for the sole purpose of sending the pictures. Hidan figured that, as long as they were going to do that, he might as well create a group chat while they were at it. Konan was mystified by all this, so Hidan sat with her in the sunroom and demonstrated how their little glowing rectangles could be used to communicate with each other. Konan disagreed with some features, but that did not stop her eyes from lighting up. He promised to set aside some of his treasure to buy her a cellphone of her own as soon as possible. A new feeling of pride bloomed in Hidan's chest. Allowing people to share their burdens as he usually did was mostly listening to others talk. Teaching was just the opposite process, yet if Konan's excitement was a valid measure he seemed to be good at it. They spent a full hour of joy together in that room, curled around each other in a little huddle while Konan explored his phone. And all was light.

Yahiko returned several hours after he had left, having possessed the foresight to get food for everyone and shop around to see what the prices were for refrigerators. During breakfast, where everyone except for Hidan and Konan ate together in the kitchen, Yahiko inquired about Nagato's dreams the previous night. He asked if they had been nightmares or good dreams. Nagato turned red and mumbled that yes, they had been pretty good dreams, and scurried away to talk to someone else. Yahiko wondered what that was about. Hidan, away in the sunroom, stared sightlessly as Konan scrolled through menus, his mind occupied by completely unrelated memories and thoughts.

Some time later Hidan stumbled out of the sunroom behind Konan, his cellphone restored to him against his will. Yahiko agonized over whether it was the right thing to do, when they both seemed so happy. Screwing up his fists and gathering every ounce of courage he had, he decided to risk it. While they were still together, which he hoped would soften any negative effects, he approached Konan.

As he had heard one should do when walking through the territory of a wild animal one does not wish to startle, he made noise to announce his presence. A soft "Hey," from the doorway of the kitchen sufficed. This was more than enough to startle Konan, turning her thoughts away from the future and into the past. Her thoughts began to race, leaping from memory to memory. She made a good faith effort to at least keep it to the positive side of her memories, and turned to face him. Silently she waited, not able to look in his face or speak to him. Yahiko's hands twisted nervously, and one of them came up fiddle with his hair.

"Um…" he started. In all the agonizing over whether or not he should do this, he hadn't actually had the time to think of _how _he would do this if he decided to. And, as always, words of any kind (never mind the right ones) did not come as easily as he wanted. Hidan had said his face was expressive enough to make up for it, but that didn't help when she couldn't look him in the face, did it? "I...I just...you want to...maybe hang out and talk at some point?"

Konan's thoughts went straight to a part of her memories that, formerly very pleasant, were now among the most painful memories of all, second only to the actual day. "Why?" she snapped. It couldn't be helped; snapping was the only possible way she could ask about that.

Yahiko went even redder as the delicate balancing act he was performing increased in difficulty, the tightrope growing thinner right beneath his feet. Something lurked around the edges of his memory but vanished before he could even find out in which direction it had come from. _Like when I try to remember my dreams. Did I dream of- Stop that! Oh god oh god what do I say?_ He panicked. Utterly and completely panicked. His mind suddenly went completely blank and he couldn't think of any words at all. An instinct, carefully conditioned to be the first one in cases like this, commanded his mostly disabled conscious mind to not embarrass him in public. His conscious mind was not able to do very much, but it did pinpoint a part of his panic that had a huge risk of embarrassing him. A more competent part of his mind immediately stepped in to head that part off at the pass.

Yahiko had only taken a few hurried breaths of obvious panic before his mouth began running, sounds spilling out of it in an effort to keep his breathing looking normal. Where the words came from, he could not have said. That is the definition of the unconscious, where deep desires rest. "No reason really, I just wanted to get to know you more and spend more time with you because it seems like I haven't done anything, so Other Me must have done something, and I don't know what it was or how to fix it and maybe if you hang out with me more you can learn to tell the difference between us and I'll be able to not hurt you or anything and- and- what's wrong with me?"

After the last question left his mouth the reset of his higher thinking functions completed, and he now shut his mouth lest anything else he didn't have the right to be asking escaped. Nagato had told him there was nothing wrong with him, nobody had so much as hinted there was, he shouldn't be thinking like that. And yet… _I guess I really can't help it. I should trust Nagato enough to just take his word for that, shouldn't I? But I don't. I need to be more confident. I need to trust him more. Why am I so unsure of myself? _If not for the fact that visibly shrinking would have made the situation even worse and he knew it, Yahiko probably would have done so as a matter of reflex. He hoped Nagato wasn't looking, wasn't perhaps still in the kitchen to watch him.

Konan, too, shut her mouth lest anything she didn't have the right to say escaped. He was right. He wasn't his original, did not share even a second of the same history. Yet, he looked and acted so similar, a part of her could not help but fear for him. _It's my fault he feels like there is something wrong with him. What can I do to stop? _She had no idea. She turned away from him, held her tongue still (barely) and stalked down the hall.

Yahiko stared after her. After all that, even asking the question he never wanted to admit he still had, she still wouldn't speak to him. He had a brief urge to cry, which he swallowed because he was supposed to be acting like a grown man, not a boy. Even so he stood there like a boy, asking himself _What did I do? _He turned to Hidan. Did Hidan have any answers?

Hidan looked faintly puzzled, and also something else. He noticed Yahiko looking at him and shook his head very quickly. "No. You should _not _try talking to her alone, least not for now."

Yahiko looked down. "Why?" he whispered.

Hidan stared at him for a second before facepalming. "Oh, for _fuck's sake._ That's not what I meant. I meant you shouldn't try talking to her alone, because it'd be a bad idea for _you._ I am not ashamed to admit I get a little scared whenever she's thinking about you or her past or anything like that. It feels like… Eh, I don't know. Just don't get too close, you might die. A riptide, I guess. Yeah, that's the shit."

Yahiko blinked, confused. "I don't understand," he finally said.

Hidan tried to summarize. "Okay, I'll try to explain in one sentence or less. In one sentence or less… She's keeping you safe from something. She does not feel as calm as her face looks. Just trust her that she can figure out a better way to keep whatever it is from hurting anyone, kay?"

"So whatever it is that she can't look at me for, I shouldn't know about it?" Yahiko asked.

"I'm saying you shouldn't ask about it. I don't know what kind of bullet you just dodged, but trust me. You just dodged one. Asking about it leads to _bad shit._" Hidan emphasized the last with some hand gestures that indicated a bomb more than a bullet. Or maybe it was something escaping? Either way, Yahiko got the basic gist.

"Okay. I just...won't do anything anymore."

Hidan groaned. "Fuckity. That's...I don't even know what is the right thing for you to be doing, so yeah sure. Go with that."

Nagato looked around and spotted them from down the hall. He rushed towards them. "Hey, Yahiko. Are you in the middle of something?"

Yahiko fiddled with his hair even more, separating strands and smoothing them down. "I am, but I don't know what. Hidan says it's dangerous and I could die, so I can't do anything but wait and maybe Konan'll figure it out. But even to me, that sounds…" His shoulders slumped. "I hate this," he whispered.

Everything Nagato had just been thinking of saying could wait. This was more important. "Hey," he said, putting his arm around Yahiko's shoulders. "I'm here."

Yahiko looked faintly guilty. "I don't really know what that means."

Nagato said, "I don't know exactly what it means either, but it's important and I care about you. If you have to wait, I'll wait with you."

Yahiko still wasn't sure exactly what they were talking about, but he felt better already. "Okay! We can practice together for a while, see what you can do." He turned to Hidan. "What about you?"

Hidan shrugged. "I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but looking at the future seems to be helping her. She's a kickass lady. It'll all turn out fine."

Nagato snorted. "Since when can you predict the future?"

Hidan reached over and poked him on the nose. "I'm not predicting the future, silly, I'm describing it." Then he left to go chase after Konan.

Nagato rubbed his nose. Yahiko's brow furrowed. "Describing? Like he can see it like something that already exists?"

Nagato nodded. "That is the difference between describing and predicting, yes."

Yahiko looked back. "He's never said anything about knowing the future before."

Nagato sighed. "I come here to apologize, and I get nightmare fuel. How lucky we are this weekend."

"Apologize? For what?"

"For earlier, when you asked about my dreams. I was just embarrassed. Why do I get the feeling that being embarrassed is going to be the least of anyone's worries from now on?"

Yahiko nodded. "Maybe because it's true? Hidan's already doing the best of everyone, and he's not embarrassed or afraid of anything. It wouldn't be a bad idea to try to be more like him, if you can."

"I don't think anyone could be like him." With that, they locked gazes and nodded as one.

Their agreement on the goal of mutual distraction led them out into the forest, where they followed the stream to a lake after being asked by Kisame to get away from his space already. Once at the lake, they continued a spirited discussion they had begun during the walk on the qualities of light. A water fight broke out, which Yahiko initially was winning. Nagato turned the tide of battle with his accidental discovery that mimicking Yahiko's jutsu actually did something. The sky even above the treetops developed rainbows everywhere within a very short time, and the clothes they wore at that moment required weeks to be free of the noxious wet-clothes smell.

Meanwhile, Hidan took a moment to admire the play of light in the sparkling water droplets caught in his arm hair. These rainbows were small, but no less beautiful. They were yet another reason he was glad to leave his new outfit folded in the passenger seat of Kakuzu's truck. He picked up a handful of sand he'd borrowed from the stream. An accidentally overpowered water jutsu burst through the trees at that moment, and he decided it was _excellent _timing and scrubbed his arms and shoulders with the sand as long as it lasted. _Am I still going to need a bath this week? _He decided that he did not. Neither of the two knew what benefit he derived from their wet games, for he was several rolling hills down from them sniffing the undergrowth. Luckily for him, Past Hidan had had the excellent foresight to soak the ground two feet below the surface with strong smelling and long lasting substances, which he now dug up. After digging just one hole and retrieving the huge metal box buried there, he sat with the metal box barely fitting in his lap and looked at as much of himself as he could see. To his sadness, he was forced to reconsider the necessity of a bath. Several of them, actually. After digging past that layer he was most unhygienic.

Kakuzu waited with the truck some distance away, grumbling that all these obnoxious trees forced him to park the vehicle away from the action. He wondered why he was grumbling. It was Hidan who would have to carry these chests all this way, not him, and he would be able to see them soon enough. But, of course, there was the childish desire to have the front row seat to any event. He squashed it and decided to think of any other topic he could come up with. Just then Hidan came back with the first box, and Kakuzu was deprived of the ability to think under his own power for the next several hours. The next several hours were spent hallucinating cash register sounds as Hidan came back with a box, staring for several minutes until the look of it became less effective, then driving each box back to add to a growing pile in front of the little abandoned garage where the antifreeze was. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Even Kisame was forced to abandon whatever he was thinking about just to catch a glimpse of what he had only seen in the pictures before. Deidara burst out laughing all over again, and Sasori felt his breath begin to tremble as he grinned uncontrollably.

Konan came out to see what the fuss was about just as Kakuzu returned with two smaller ones, and forgot about her troubles for the next few minutes as she giggled with the others about the look Kakuzu had on his face. He didn't mind, possessed as he was. It was most strange, she thought. _Every other member of the Akatsuki is a man, yet they are all very good to gossip with. _Cultural differences? It was a possibility, but not one she would have expected. This time, Kakuzu mentioned that the next shipment would be the last. Sasori went to Konan's side and asked her if she could create colored paper with her jutsu. She said she had not seen any reason to invent such a technique, so no. He looked briefly considerate, then decided that a star made of ordinary white paper would do just as well, as long as it was impressive. He looked around. Nearly everyone else was sitting around, showing signs of getting bored. Before anyone had the chance to wander away, he went to Deidara and whispered something in the blond's ear, causing him to perk up and nod eagerly.

Konan approached Sasori as Dei ran off to whisper in other people's ears. "What did you suggest?"

Sasori blinked in confusion. "Do you have Christmas in your world?"

Konan shook her head.

Sasori leaned in just a little and whispered, "It's a celebration where you drag a tree indoors and pile presents around it. The tree always has a star on top."

By now Dei had told everyone, and they eagerly organized themselves. Kisame and Itachi won the right to move some of the boxes around to look more festive. Konan played along and formed a multipointed shape that resembled an abstract concept of an explosion more than it did a star, which was accepted and placed on top. Some boxes around the base were moved to leave a clear place to put the last load. She had to admit it did look more orderly. Then they looked around to decide who should run to fetch Nagato and Yahiko. Konan elected someone at random. It wasn't important next to other concerns. _What are they thinking? _

They came back, and Konan discretely moved to hide behind the crowd. How would she explain herself? Yet, they didn't seem very upset. Their clothes appeared to hold the entirety of the lake, and as they slowly evaporated the air developed secondary rainbows. It seemed they were not very upset, after all. _They should be. How can they be so careless? _Cultural differences? It did not seem like a strong possibility this time.

When Kakuzu came back with Hidan, who was riding in the bed of the truck next to the last box, he initially did not notice, simply moving automatically to put the last box in the space conveniently left for it. Only when his cycle of repetitive behaviors ended did he finally shake his head and look around, noticing what they'd done for the first time. Hidan had restrained himself so far, but now burst out laughing. Yahiko darted away and came back with some flowers, which he wove together into a crown and placed on Kakuzu's head before the older man even noticed. Some of the others shifted as if they'd have liked to ask how he did that, but Nagato made good use of arm gestures and threats to get them to not say a damn thing about Yahiko's skill. There was nothing amiss when the flower-weaver had finished placing his crown on Kakuzu's head and turned around, and nobody said a damn thing as he came back to stand next to Nagato.

Kakuzu played along and wore the crown for the next few hours. A good time was had by all.

**A/N: Ah, finally. A chapter that covers most of a day. IF I keep this up, I might eventually write a chapter that covers a full day. Since I have a couple in-story months to go before the next major pre-planned development and at least another in-story month after that for the major twist, HURRY UP ALREADY, ME. Jeez, Me gets so impatient. Happy Columbus Day! Terror and screaming for yall next week.**


	15. Aftershocks, Forerumbles

**A/N: Every time I focus on a character, the focusing itself makes me like that character more. For example, I didn't focus on the Akatsuki at all for my mental fanfic before the dream (though I did love them in the show), but now that I do I suddenly love them all. For another example, I already have Kisame's adventures next chapter written thanks to an unplanned vacation day, and I love Kisame right now and think sharks are awesome. Dracula was right!  
**

**Kisame**

The rest of the day was a little awkward. With no object to focus their attention on, most of the group dispersed to their own small circles. Nagato and Yahiko made some effort to enter into discussion with the Akatsuki members they had not known before, with great success. Neither of the two believed they were the one responsible for this success, each thinking that the other had some special charisma that did it. Sasori retreated to his room where he had stashed the paper, pleading tiredness. Itachi too wandered around back to examine the minuscule patch of yard they could claim to have. Kisame did not mind at all, because before any of this happened he had already returned to his spot by the stream. The subject was already worn smooth in his mind; there was nothing to be gained. He had to admit most of the reason he was here was to avoid the inevitable questions about what he had been thinking of all day.

_No use talking about it until it's done. This is the sort of bet you should hedge. _He stared at the water, which now flickered in a completely different and vaguely interesting pattern. _Not to mention it'll spike my anxiety. _There was a little flash in the water. He shivered. This was insane. Entirely crazy. He'd definitely be blacklisted from every place he knew of and every place he didn't, possibly be arrested, and who even knew what would happen then. He knew enough about cause and effect to deduce that.

Yet...Konan existed. Something about her existence seemed to Kisame like it should have some consequence, but it did not. Even if she had only been around for two days by now, the first day was spent wandering all around town. Shouldn't _something _have happened? Kisame could not for the life of him produce a mental picture of something that was likely to happen, but the feeling persisted. _That doesn't make any damn sense. She doesn't really fit in with this world, but it's not like she clashes with it either. _Did she? Kisame found his thoughts on that subject wandering in directions he really did not want it to be wandering. He was partially shark, after all…

_That's just...huh. If cause and effect hold up, I shouldn't even be in this position now. _His social position as of this moment was by his own choosing, which almost every child past the age of ten could understand as a privilege not afforded to those who had some obvious distinguishing characteristic. _Not usually. I really shouldn't be seen as just another guy who works with sharks. _And yet he was. Only the breaking of at least one of the laws governing the way the world generally worked could explain this. Could it possibly be that one?

This was not the first time he'd come to this conclusion and asked this question. Kisame was well aware he was performing the mental equivalent of pacing over well-trod, familiar ground. His hands tensed and relaxed rhythmically. He realized briefly that he was staring into the water. Staring. Why?

_Could I be onto something? _This was a more recent track his thoughts had started to run over after a while. He'd come to a lot of conclusions, and this was the only one he constantly retraced. Why? _It's just as likely that something equally unlikely has happened. Maybe everyone is under an illusion. Maybe I'm just surrounded by people stuck in the same dream I was in, before I realized being sharky isn't normal. Maybe some pocket of good fortune kept prejudice off me until I proved myself to be perfectly normal with my actions. All of these things make logical sense. All operate on normal cause and effect. No need to assume the world's suddenly different when it wasn't before._

None of which affected the mysterious feeling in any way. No matter what… _I still think something's not working like it should. _And, back to analyzing the way Konan had looked to him at first meeting he went.

It was crazy. Entirely insane. If cause and effect was working normally, he'd suffer brutal consequences, and he wouldn't be the only one. But he had no idea if it was or not. And really, it wasn't even about him. What happened to Kisame seemed small if only… _How am I going to explain my weekend to Samehada? Would he understand? _

The little whatever-it-was flashed again near its hiding place. He'd noticed that it always seemed to be around a certain collection of rocks piled beneath the surface. Rather unstable place to make a home. But… Why not?

**Hidan**

Hidan spent all next morning recovering from the worst hangover he had ever had.

As he lay in bed curled up and shaking beneath a layer of the heaviest blankets he could find, trying not to move too much, images from the day before flashed through his mind. Each brought unspeakable agony. Then again, everything brought unspeakable agony, so as long as he was unable to pass out and bring an end to the pain he could at least be thinking of something pleasant. He reached this conclusion without actually thinking through any of these reasons, evidence of his only saving grace right now. It was probably the only reason he hadn't thrown up yet.

Since thinking hurt too much, memories flashed by as images. Kakuzu wearing a flower crown. The rusted locks on the treasure chests. The skin-darkening-and-turning-hard technique being used by Kakuzu to smash open the locks. A hug from Sasori. Konan taking her first car ride with Kisame and Itachi. The bar. The first round of drinks in celebration. And then…

Somehow the memory of what had brought on this hangover was painful by itself. If he'd been relaxed enough to breathe, Hidan would have whimpered. He pushed forward, remembering. Konan not drinking. Everyone laughing, the sound paired with an image of the far corner of the bar. Grief. A crying lady. Attempts at comfort. And then…

_The touch. My soul. _What was that lady? He had no idea. _Touching me. H-hey…_

Mercy at last. Hidan passed out smiling, his plan to relieve his pain having worked perfectly.

**Konan**

Meanwhile, Konan sat around with the containers of paint Nagato had helpfully loaned her, painting targets. As she worked, she thought of last night. The screams. The terror.

After taking all the boxes down to the basement following their little Christmas celebration, they discovered that Hidan's fears of rust were not unfounded. Fortunately it had only affected the locks by this point, although the corners of some older boxes were dangerously brittle and already bent. The timing seemed suspiciously convenient. Konan wondered about that as Kakuzu employed the technique she had reminded him of to great effect. Oddly enough, the most visibly joyous reaction of all had come from Sasori. Her expectation of him as a puppetmaster was dropping by the hour.

Someone had had the bright idea to suggest alcohol to celebrate. So back to the bar she had gone, this time taking the opportunity to experience a car for the first time. Konan's eyes glazed over at the memory, her mouth moving upward and her heart beating faster. _Haaaaaaahhhhhhh. Did I feel like this with Yahiko once? _Maybe. That thought did not bring any pain at this time, which might have been because she wasn't picturing Yahiko as she thought it.

So fast. So smooth. Konan took a deep breath and pushed away that delightful memory for the present. Afterwards, the bar was exactly as she remembered it. Still crowded. Still uncomfortable. Still overly popular. Several Akatsuki members had mentioned the noise and smell, so she wasn't the only one that found the environment unpleasant. Yet they had decided to celebrate there, apparently because it was known as the place to celebrate things. That made no sense at all. _What is going on in that place?_

The answer was clearly, "more than it seemed." Because they had had a good time for a while, sitting around a table, talking over the day's events, ordering the first round of drinks. Konan had to admit that if used properly, the bar was a place where people could have legitimate fun. Even she had enjoyed her time there without the influence of alcohol, which was too dangerous to risk drinking. Even Kisame had laughed. The first half hour there was surprisingly pure bliss.

Then it happened. Konan, as both a social outsider and the only nondrinker there, had been the first to see Hidan's ears twitch. Then he turned and looked around. Konan had followed the track of his eyes to a woman who, now that she was focusing on it, could be heard crying quietly in a far corner. Hidan looked very confused. He had put his hand on his chest, then taken it away and scratched his head. She would have to ask him what he had been confused about when he recovered from the events that followed.

Konan now closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Thinking about what happened had a way of sucking her into her thoughts, because it had all been too confusing. She had not the slightest clue _what_ had happened, and no amount of going over the jumbled visual memories in her mind could change that. _One more breath. In. Hold. Out. _Looking at something would help her become absorbed in her thoughts, so she kept her eyes closed. _Sort it out, ask Hidan what happened later. _

What was there to sort? _Let's see…_ First, Hidan had gotten up. That was the part some others at the table had first noticed. He walked over to the woman, blocked Konan's view. Even as she had stood up to see the woman better, she saw Hidan's body language change into something uncomfortable. Had he been trying to get away? Unknown; some people had walked between them at that point. The last of the interlopers jumped and skittered to the side as the woman let out a piercing shriek, threatening to blow Konan's eardrums out of her ears. She had instinctively closed her eyes and every other sense against this onslaught, which was a mistake. She'd recognized that at the time and forced her eyes open in time to see Hidan stumbling back, and a _someone _on the floor beneath him. Whoever it was was still crying out in pain. It now seemed to have two voices as it rolled, clutching at its genitals and scratching blindly in Hidan's direction.

She'd winced, its cries of pain making her head hurt for a moment. Then Konan had recovered, just in time to see a man rolling around on the ground whimpering. The woman had disappeared. Where had she…? But then the man had gotten up and stumbled for the door, and had his features seemed a little strange as he did so? Hidan stumbled back over, punching someone out of the way in the process, and everything went to hell. He fell down, and several people around the site of the initial incident started screaming and bleeding. Konan hadn't even been able to see where they were bleeding _from_. Someone threw a chair, which broke over a person's head. For a moment she had flashed back to Hidan's conversation about wood, but it was gone before anything useful came to mind. Nagato and Yahiko ducked their heads as they tried to lift Hidan to their shoulders. Deidara had disappeared; there was a flash of blond dragging a pale flash of red out the back exit. Kakuzu, weirdly enough, had raced over to the scene. Perhaps he had some innate sense of his durability similar to how Hidan's survival instincts tailored themselves to his immortality. Konan had no idea what he'd accomplished; she'd covered Hidan with paper and used her jutsu to get them the hell out of there. Nagato and Yahiko followed shortly, a little delayed from Nagato's emergency rescue of Yahiko when the latter fell down near some panicked people. Her paper contorted, so she let the jutsu disperse. Hidan promptly curled up with his hands and legs folding in towards his chest, barely able to breath as tears dripped from his eyes.

_So what the hell happened? _Konan opened her eyes and resumed painting. The brush swirled in an even circle around a dot. The circle closed, a little lens which Konan peered through, almost imagining that she could see the scene in it. But no, there was no clarity to be found here. The brush snapped in her fingers, and she threw it to the side as she stood up and stormed off to Hidan's room.

**Itachi**

Itachi stood in a gas station bathroom, hands placed on the two near corners of a sink. He breathed. _In, out. In, out. _His hands itched to reach for his phone. He noticed this impulse, and ignored it. _In, out. _

For a mantra, he idly browsed through a selection of mental images. He needed something stable. For a few seconds, he tried to use the mental image of his drink that he had looked down at for a while last night. _That is not a stable image. _It kept changing to other things. Itachi decided he needed something not from last night. That was a wonderful idea, but it failed miserably. Not a thing came to mind.

He tried to use a sound, instead. The sound of his breathing, which he slowed to its previous speed, worked. Or at least it seemed to. There was a time limit to how long he could stay here and try to calm himself. He swept his focus over his hands. They did not seem to be shaking very much. That would have to be good enough.

As soon as he left his foul-smelling happy place, the questions returned. His hands trembled again. The _blood…_ He had never seen so much blood. It wasn't a "somebody definitely died" amount of blood, but it was significant. Was any of it Hidan's? Had he worked his way back to their table before or after? Itachi paused midstep, long enough to decide that no, he had only been imagining a repeat of those cries from last night. What had Hidan even walked away _for?_ What had he seen? Itachi tried to notice these thoughts passing and let them go, he really did, but they dragged him away. His heart was beating hard, his face felt a little warm, and he could even feel some of his body hair itching at the roots. His hands pricked with full awareness of every ridge, it seemed like.

A regular acquaintance of his came up. It was the guy who always asked if he had anything new to play. The guy opened his mouth, then tilted his head, puzzled. He seemed to shake, and his eyes lit up. Itachi had the feeling that he knew exactly what this guy was going to say before he said it. Sure enough, it happened. The exact words. "Is that the flush of creative fever I see? Dude! Play it!"

Itachi clenched his fists to keep from strangling the guy, who seemed not to notice this great effort. But then he stopped. The urge to strangle passed. _Haven't all great artists been inspired from their lives? Perhaps I can use this…_

He didn't have any time to prepare anything, so it was full improv. Itachi didn't exactly care in this mood. The guy's eyes bugged as he heard the chaotic, discordant, messed-up sounds that issued from the guitar. His body bobbed up and down in an enthralled stupor, and he wasn't the only one. Itachi found the way his fingers trembled, switching from one position to another before he was even halfway through the previous note, to be very useful. He swept himself away against a background of people.

**Kakuzu**

Kakuzu paced around his apartment, sweeping the occasional knickknack off the low table of his living room. He tried to sit down, but got back up, buzzing with energy. He tried to complete some kind of project, but his mind wandered and he got up again. He went to the kitchen and looked for something to eat. When the door closed he hadn't even seen what the inside of the fridge looked like.

_Damn you Hidan. And damn everyone else, as long as I'm at it. _His eyes roamed over the space he'd called home for years, and yet it seemed like he'd never seen it before in his life. Everything was dull. Even colors seemed muted. The flashy red and green of that book that Hidan had gotten once for the sole purpose of annoying him now seemed irrelevant to his eyes. Kakuzu looked around at things he'd been annoyed by almost every day for the past three months, been making a continuous effort to reorganize. His arm swept out and knocked one of those loathsome piles over. There was brief chaos as everything fell to the ground, then silence. It was over.

_Damn you Hidan. _Kakuzu could now feel the muscles in his arms, feel the chakra humming in his body. He could even feel his mind working, strange as that sounded. Did maniacs feel like this? Probably. As worried as he might have ordinarily been, Kakuzu could do nothing but visualize that room that Hidan had planned, where things never just stayed in order, over and over again. His curiosity was alive, making him wish for a pen to write down all the questions he had. Just what had their originals' world been like? What did ninja do with their abilities? Did it involve racing? He had the strange certainty that it did.

_Grrr. Next thing I see is getting a hole punched through it. _He snatched some kind of coat from somewhere and threw the door back against its hinges. He was actually getting a little bored. _Fuck you, Hidan. _That little furbeast had better be awake when he got there.

**Deidara**

Deidara went shopping. It was nice. He hadn't been shopping in a while. Several weeks, at least. The air conditioning was soothing, as were the delicate perfumes of the fruit section. Ah, it was good to be home!

Dei wondered about things as he went up and down the aisles. He wondered, _I need to ask Sasori how much the materials for those things cost, yeah. _He wondered, _Should I go to the pharmacy for hair care products? It's been a while, yeah. _That led him to wonder, _How long has it been since I took a full, soaking bath, hm? A good one, with all the works. I've really let myself go, yeah. _He wondered about a lot of minor domestic things. The beauty of it was, _not one _of those things was at all related to last night.

At checkout, he voluntarily chatted with the cashier lady for the first time in what felt like forever. "Do your corporate overlords know that their 'awesome sale' this week is on the same stuff that's filling the half-price rack, hm?" he asked, indicating the peppers.

She smiled a little and shook her head. "Don't think so. And please, don't tell them. You'd be amazed at what the feeling of 'pulling one over on the man' is doing for customer morale. Haven't gotten a baseless complaint all shift."

Dei blinked. "Damn. I hadn't thought of that, hm."

"That's all you have in the cart? I'm required to check. Well, if you need to take out rage against the world at someone, I'd rather it not be me."

"Sounds like you meet a lot of people that are just crazy in their head, yeah."

"You ever work retail? That'll be $35.46, please."

Dei put his card in the machine, entered his number, waited around for it to finish whatever it did. "No, and I think I should be happy about that, yeah. At least the people shooting at me had reasons behind it."

The cashier lady paused after sliding the last item into the bags he had provided. "What?"

The transaction was completed, and Deidara took his bags back. "Weird reasons, but reasons, yeah. Happy Monday!"

Her mouth opened, but then the next customer called for her attention with a "you! come here" snap of their fingers.

**Sasori**

He'd never thought about how to sneak into the shop manager's office without being caught before. But like they say, there's a first time for everything.

The job would have been harder to pull off if he'd thought of this the previous week. Now, it turned out to be surprisingly simple. Sasori didn't get much time to himself for any kind of a break, so he planned everything out down to the minute as he completed routine repairs beforehand. He would only have two chances at this. He saw an opportunity to add an extra minute or two to the first of those chances, and pushed extra hard to get the last thing done quickly. No new customers came in, so the shop manager was powerless to make up a new job for him to do before the machines finished their duties. Grudgingly, he gave Sasori a slightly early break.

The new-week advantage factored in once the man was out of earshot, haranguing the lady in the front. At that point Sasori, keeping an eye out in case she finally managed to stand up for herself and shut the manager up instead of letting him drone on for the usual five to ten minutes about her professional failings, acted as his own lookout while he attached a chakra string to the doorknob and used his jutsu to unlock the lock and open it. It seemed she was not going to so manage any time soon. _Poor girl, _he thought as he ducked in and shut the door behind him.

Now where would it be? Sasori cursed his luck. The desk was practically busting its drawers with papers. How long would this take him? He opened the first and started sifting through the contents. _Garbage, garbage, garbage. I'm screwed. Embezzlement? Garbage. I'll take it in case Kakuzu has any interest. More garbage. Nope. Not it. No. Worse garbage. _

The clock ticked, and Sasori's heart nearly stopped as the sound of shouting peaked and died down the hall. _I'm going to get so bothered for the rest of my day if he catches me in here. _Then again… Sasori's hair found itself plastered against his skin with sweat. _Oh, crap. I might actually get fired. There's no way he could forget which drawer the potentially incriminating paper is in, unlike all these oth- _

He stopped shuffling. _This is all garbage. Useless. He doesn't need it, he can afford to hide it somewhere he doesn't have to think about it. The important information would be somewhere he can ignore it but still get it when he needs to, such as- _

Sasori turned around. _The billboard right behind me. The one that has a single piece of paper tacked to it. Joy of joys. _There wasn't enough time to get the paper, shut the incriminating drawer, and make his escape before the manager came back. Fortunately Sasori did not have to do all of those things. His fingers flicked on each hand, and he made his way to the door as the drawer closed behind him and the tack pulled out of the board. Another string caught the paper as it fell to the floor, pulling the sheet to a location out of the way before sitting slack on the ground and lengthening. Sasori wasn't quite sure about his ability to control such a long string stretched beneath a closed door, but how hard could it be? What mattered was that he was back at work, putting his lunch away as if he'd only just finished eating. There was no way for the manager to berate him for taking too long a break when he was technically back to work before he had to be. The unpleasant man grunted and continued on his way into his office, satisfied with the front desk lady. If he noticed Sasori keeping a pinkie free and motionless, he said nothing.

Sasori sighed in relief when the door closed again. _The front desk lady's been here for three weeks now. She has to be getting unsatisfying. Thank god today's not that day. _He hoped Original Sasori had practiced delicate moves like this, because he had no idea what he was doing, and moved his pinkie a little. He really didn't have any idea what he was doing. The basic principle of withdrawing the string back into his body was obvious, but how to control that? Eh. Fortunately the paper slid around the corner after a minute, and he heard no yelling from the office. _Whew. _

He took a quick look at the paper to confirm it was what he had been looking for before folding it for safekeeping. _Dollar signs and numbers. Good. Metal, different kinds of wiring, other things, all their sources and prices are here. Bonus: he has readable handwriting. _Sasori smiled and went back to work.

**Yahiko**

Even the sale on women's blouses could not calm his nerves. The woman in charge of his department had noticed he seemed jittery early in his shift, but said nothing. He was able to spare the energy to think that it probably had something to do with the reason he was rotated into in the women's clothing department in the first place.

The spare energy lasted for only as long as it took to think that before his mind was back to the events of last night. _Hidan. Is he okay? _Even the screaming and crying in pain which he still heard did not sway his mind from this concern. But none of these things was the true cause of his jitteriness. Yahiko was not distracted by fear for what had happened to his new friend (who was, after all, being watched over), nor was he distracted by the suffering of the past. He would make time to be disturbed by that later. No, the cause of his tension was something new. It was a thought that had occurred to him just before he drifted off last night, in perfect time to ruin his sleep. The sleep deprivation wasn't helping, but it was but merely an accomplice to one recurring thought that circled Yahiko's mind over and over. He felt like a delicious chum bag perched on a pole within a ring of circling sharks who were also himself. Yet he couldn't help it. It was instinctual. _What did Hidan do?_

The thought haunted him. The first scream hadn't been Hidan's, after all. It was that woman's. Or whoever's. The mental image of her facial bones bending like taffy still haunted his eyes. Regardless, he couldn't ignore the evidence of his senses. Hidan may be in a concerning mental state, but he wasn't injured. His pain had changed form and faded to nothing more than a headache resembling a terrible hangover by the time he got halfway home. But that woman-thing had been screaming, curled on the ground. Yahiko squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and realized he'd wrongly stocked half a display. He took the items down and started over.

Somehow, he managed to hypnotize himself enough to get through the rest of his day. At some point during the restocking he'd remembered that some people used a mantra, and tried it. _Ask Hidan later. Ask Hidan later. Ask Hidan later. _By the end of his day, when everything was stocked as well as it needed to be and the department head told him to take off early with concern in her voice, he realized that the mantra had shortened to _Later. Later. Later. _at some point.

Nagato had to be either psychic or very worried, because he was right there waiting despite the early hour. Yahiko let Nagato take his hand and squeeze it, try to make him feel better. Nagato was always good at that. He didn't keep a distance physically or emotionally like most men seemed to. He couldn't. Yahiko had always been grateful for that. It was much more natural. Understandable.

He cheered up further when Nagato led him away to the aquarium.

**Nagato**

He knew by now what Yahiko was like, and would not have been afraid to claim he knew better than anyone else. There had been the sound of people screaming. They'd had to duck their heads as the bar erupted into chaos and fear. They'd had to protect Hidan for a bit. _Of course _Yahiko was going to be worried and distracted by thoughts of that all day.

And, Nagato knew, the ideal remedy for that would be something alive and liquid. The moths floating in the scent-filled air were like that. As it was not approaching night, the aquarium would have to do. Yahiko did seem to look more focused and walk faster as they got nearer. Nagato felt a little flutter of fear about being seen walking into a family-oriented place holding Yahiko's hand, so he squeezed his hand tighter. Yahiko needed him to, and he came first. Above everything. Yahiko felt the squeeze and smiled his gratitude. Nagato smiled back. Yahiko could have a _lot_ of gratitude.

They walked in. Thank the gods, the aquarium made most of its money off people wanting to feed the animals or buy things from the gift shop, so they did not have to pay just to get in the door. Yahiko sighed in amazement, and his hand loosened in Nagato's grip. He did not need comfort any longer. Nagato held the feeling a little longer, then let go. His hand felt rather empty and cold now. He sighed, hoping it sounded like amazement to Yahiko.

They spent fifteen minutes straight on their feet staring up at the fish. The scales on the fish glinted like little stars every time the school turned, and no matter what happened they always seemed to be dancing. Yahiko was enraptured. Nagato spent the whole fifteen minutes struggling to keep his eyes on the fish and not on Yahiko. The blueness helped. He really liked that color. Out of the corner of his eye beneath his hair, another color he liked just as much beckoned. He did not give in.

After about fifteen minutes of this, Nagato had an idea. Yahiko could have spent every minute until closing time just tracing the aquatic life in their paths around the tank, but once Nagato suggested it he agreed readily enough. Nagato looked for signs. He had a specific destination in mind this time, if in fact it existed. _It does. _He hoped for distraction as they followed the signs to the shark tank.

The both of them got much more distraction than they hoped for. Yahiko spotted Kisame sitting on a bench against the opposite wall as soon as they entered the room. Almost instantly, he could see that something was wrong. Kisame's shoulders were hunched. His eyes were fixed at the bottom of the tank, ignoring the graceful fishes that swung like aquatic acrobats overhead. He jumped as they approached.

Nagato asked, with concern in his voice, "Kisame? Is everything alright?"

Kisame looked at them with a look neither of them recognized. "No. If you're smart, you idiots will get the hell out of here. I don't need to add anyone else to my plate."

Yahiko wanted to stay and ask more, but Kisame looked like he knew that and _glared. _The two of them looked at each other and made the wise decision to slink away quietly.

Kisame remained where he was, out of sight and contemplating. Eventually the flow of people into the room slowed, then stopped entirely. Only then did he stand up.

**Kisame**

_Showtime._

**A/N: I didn't plan for anything dramatic to happen this chapter, but something needed to be happening to fill the first part of the day. The terror and screaming is actually very helpful, now that I think of it. It helps set up this thing I'm going to do later. I'm glad that came to me. **

**Yes, this version of Kakuzu is getting bored. If you ever considered messing with Kakuzu when he is bored, rethink that decision.**

**I also had no idea whatsoever what Yahiko's day job is before I started writing his section. That's rather interesting...**

**Sasori's terrorized female coworker is inspired in some way by Not Always Right. It's a good site if you want to be angry for a while.**

**Heehee. How long is it going to be before this whole story goes straight to Hell?**


	16. Kinship

**A/N: Yahoo!**

**Kisame, cont'd**

First, Kisame began his shift as he usually did, getting changed into some ratty clothes that could be allowed to smell like fish. His heart beat restlessly, as did his mind. The temptation to give up was there, so tempting, if only he could. _I could just do everything as normal. I could. Just feed the sharks, play with Samehada, change, get out of here. I could just do that...in some kind of parallel universe maybe. _He knew his thoughts would only continue if he did, worry running in the opposite direction but still worrying.

_This feels...ugh. How does Hidan put up with this? _Kisame scowled as he put on the last item. Feeding the sharks was the favorite part of his day. He couldn't think of what exactly it felt like, or perhaps he didn't want to, but he was willing to acknowledge that it was very pleasant. But today, the favorite part of his day was ruined. The pleasantness somehow only made his guts twist even more. The thought that he should enjoy this as he usually did made Kisame's mind spin further. His entire body felt awful. _This is against everything I would naturally think of doing. Why am I even thinking this way? Because of _**her**_, of course. _A brief course of anger washed away the feelings of wrongness, just for a little while.

Normally, he took pleasure in his routine. Normally, it felt just like something he thought it was quite strange to compare it to, and therefore didn't. Normally, this was his job. Today, Kisame did not feel like that at all. _I shouldn't even be here. _That was the first time he had ever thought that about the aquarium. _I feel like I'm so...undeserving? Phony? What the hell is wrong with me? _

Kisame shook his head. The only answer he could think of to that was "everything." _What am I now? A wuss? There's no reason for me to be bothered like this. It's not like I'm some kind of girl or anything. _He thought of Konan. _Okay, bad example, and more than a little sexist. I obviously meant a little girl, with pigtails and dolls or something. _He thought of Konan as a little girl looking at the way a knife shone in the dark. _Dammit. A squirrel? _That didn't evoke any unfortunate associations. He was in the clear.

Kisame paused for a moment to listen to the whir of the vents, a low pitched, constant hum that he could feel if he focused enough. _So what if I do get fired and blacklisted from just about everywhere? What's the worst that can happen? My great-grandparents would be ashamed if they knew I was freaking out about something so trivial._ Kisame detected a brief lightening of his thoughts. Ah ha! A topic he could think of to distract himself!

_Yeah, they would be, _he thought as he resumed his task. _What did they go through again? I remember they moved, really far away. Away from everything they knew. What am I doing, worrying about my job? At least I belong here. What were they moving for? _He drew a blank on that one. Had he ever been told about their reasons? Had he ever asked? Kisame realized with a pang of sadness that he'd forgotten when he could, and now it was too late to ask. But anything, even that kind of sadness, was better than worrying about the stability of his future. He pressed on.

_Okay, I don't know anything about that. What do I know? _That drew several more pangs as he realized he knew almost nothing else. _They came from some kind of small, isolated seaside place, I think. Damn. Since when did I know so little about my own family? _The thought that he was probably in the same boat as millions was not reassuring. _I never even asked…_

Sometimes Kisame wondered about his life. Sometimes it seemed a little empty, and he was reminded of the way he'd heard other people talk about friendships and bonds in every piece of media he had ever consumed in his entire life. About sitting on their grandparent's knee. About summers spent running and playing with friends. Sometimes, he remembered how happy other people seemed when they talked about those things, and he wondered. Did other people have a different kind of happiness than he did? Was it stronger or greater than his happiness? Was it something everyone should have, and if so, did he miss it? Would he ever know? Now was one of those times.

_What else? Okay, so they moved somewhere around here. They changed their name. What was it before? Damn, I don't know. Why would they change it? Were they trying to cut all ties with their hometown or escape from some people? _Kisame's mind was elsewhere as the realization that he didn't even know what his name was broke over his head. Thank god for routine, actions practiced so many times his mind need not be involved to complete them.

_Well, that doesn't matter. It's all history. My history. _He shook his head. _Whatever. Doesn't matter now. I know my name now, Hoshigaki, and that's all I need to know. I'm not missing anything. I don't need to know about some rundown, middle of nowhere, tiny village that probably doesn't even have a name on the map. Did they have some business to get away from? Fine. Good for them. I don't. I'm here, and this is where I belong. No use worrying over what you can't change. _

Kisame's attempt to give himself an inspiring speech fell flat. He found himself visualizing entire villages with no names, no maps, just people. Entire civilizations. He shook his head. What was this feeling? It was like a tightness in his chest. It wasn't a feeling he knew from anywhere. It felt _awful._ Then again, there were a lot of things he'd always felt pride for not knowing about up until this very moment. Those things together with the content of his thoughts led to only one conclusion. _Am I...lonely?_

He lowered his head and stood up, moving to do something else. For a few minutes, all he knew was the feeling of doing what he was hired for, and doing it well. That was plainly visible. And yet, another feeling burned in him too. The smooth motions of cleaning, checking things to see that they worked as they should, could not make the feeling in the center of his gut go away. It felt like sinking, and it felt like burning where it reached up to his neck and face. He lowered his head again, and consciously relaxed his overly tense fingers. That word echoed in his mind. _Lonely. _

_That _word… It was a thing only other people ever worried about. What kind of weakling was so pathetic as to seriously be unable to have a life without needing someone else to help them along? Anyone who absolutely needed someone else to come over for the weekend or else they would be devastated and unable to be happy surely had dependency issues. Kisame frowned, his lips parting for a low growl. That was intolerable. Pathetic. Company could be nice, could make life more enjoyable, sure. He didn't mind people that enjoyed the company of others. Where he drew the line was at the concept of _loneliness:_ that it was possible to _need _others. The only connection a strong person should _need_ was a connection to themself.

His breath caught in his chest. That was it. That was just it. He wasn't feeling loneliness at all. It was just a lack of connection to himself. _I guess it is my history… Isn't that what everyone signed up for this lunacy for? Finding out more about themselves? I'm not weak. I just don't feel as attached to myself as I'd like. Obviously. _He considered the possibility that, since he didn't have access to a time machine, connecting to other people might be the only way to sooth that desire for now. _Sure. That's only reasonable. That's what Samehada does. He reminds me of some part of myself, a little. He's my friend. _

That decided it. Kisame grinned and barely stopped himself from laughing as he thought of what he had been so worried about before. _How did I miss that? It's so obvious now. Of course it's the right thing to do. _He pushed himself faster, eagerness taking over. Why did feeding the sharks have to be the _last _part of his job?

**Samehada**

The water rushed over Samehada's scales. The water rushed in and out, in and out of his open mouth. It tasted of living things. When it left Samehada's mouth, it did not taste of living things. He shifted impatiently, curled up under a rock that captured some water going by so he did not have to stick his mouth out into the wider currents. The taste was good. He liked it very much. But it did not taste nearly as good as Human-cousin's arm. When would Human-cousin get here?

Samehada got tired of being lazy and swam out into the open water. The other Cousins, the tank ones, avoided him as they always did. They swam away from him, disliking contact. He did not hold it against them for being so prickly and standoffish. All Cousins were like that. But it was like these ones had never thought of anything else. He hoped the Cousins he swam with in this tank weren't anywhere near his direct bloodline. They were all dumb, completely dumb. He wasn't dumb, and neither was Human-cousin. They talked back and forth all the time. Samehada could be quite sure that his tank-Cousins thought something, because they were like him and he did. But if they could have held a conversation with him, he did not expect that they would be able to have an interesting one. He tried swimming up to a Cousin with stripes. She dodged out of the way. Samehada sighed. There was nothing here. So boring. When would Human-cousin get here?

He swam in circles, counting how long it took. At least the humans were interesting. This time was the painful part of his day, when there were no humans. Sometimes he did tricks for them like he did for Human-cousin. They liked it just as much as Human-cousin did. Impressing humans was a goal of some sort, a sport to keep him occupied. The weekends were the worst. On the weekends, his belly growled. Human-cousin wasn't around, and there was nobody to play with and nothing to eat. He couldn't distract himself from loneliness by eating or distract himself from hunger by having fun. The other Cousins did provide some food, of course. Samehada swam with his mouth wide open, picking up as much from the water as he could. It was so good that he swam in uneasy zigzags for a while, yet his belly still growled. Samehada settled under the rock to whimper. When would Human-cousin get here?

Sometimes Samehada wondered about himself, if he was really desperate for something to think of. What sort of egg had he come from? What color was it? Was he spawned in a lake, or a bay, or one of those other bodies of water that he couldn't remember the names of, or in a tank like this one? He hated considering that last option. The tank really didn't taste very good now. He swam up to the surface, licked at the air above the tank. After a day filled with humans, the air tasted much better. But the air over the tank didn't flow as much, didn't hold as much, and he couldn't jump for more because the humans that Human-cousin disliked could always be watching. When would Human-cousin get here?

_Water is dead. Air is dead. Can't bite Cousins - striped Cousin bit small Cousin once, bad humans gave shots, thought of killing, blocked mouth. Can't chew. Can't flip. _He tried flipping like he had last time Human-cousin had been here. It didn't make him very happy to do it alone with no one watching. _All is dead. I dead? _He _was _very hungry. _Every weekend is bad. Dead. _Samehada curled up under the rock again, curling tighter than he ever had before in hopes the pain would help. When would Human-cousin get here?

**Kisame**

Kisame concentrated on the future as much as he could, working fast. _My friend. _Finally he was able to get the fish - which he took the usual length of time to check - and head to the tank for feeding time. He didn't see Samehada, which was...concerning. He shook it off and climbed the ladder perhaps a little faster than caution would allow. By the time he reached the top it became clear where Samehada had gone. He had already hurled himself out of the water and was waiting, tail waggling back and forth frantically.

Kisame took a closer look at Samehada. His sharky friend had never acted like this before. Of course, Kisame had other responsibilities. He splashed at the water and spread fish bits to attract the other sharks, then just dumped the entire bucket in at once. He didn't bother saving any for Samehada, turning instead to pat his friend on the nose scales.

Samehada snapped his mouth eagerly. That wasn't entirely unusual for him to do, but… Kisame wondered what it meant, that Samehada ate chakra. If he was only there for a regular workweek and someone else took over the weekend care, did that mean Samehada went hungry? He'd never had any suspicions about the weekend guy's feeding abilities, but if Samehada didn't eat fish…

Kisame took off his gloves without a care and held it forward. Samehada bit eagerly, perhaps leaving a mark. Kisame winced but did not pull away. His eyes stayed widened. _Oh my god. He's not like a regular shark at all. At least I'm mostly like a regular human. Oh god. _He felt disgusted that he'd never gotten around to thinking of what Konan's news meant for Samehada before. He wondered if Samehada had been here for only as long as he had been. Kisame hadn't returned from vacation very long ago, so that was good news. On the other hand, he had memories of playing with Samehada for a very long time before that. Which meant that Samehada must have memories of being in this unsuitable place for a very long time. _Oh my god. _

He leaned forward so Samehada wouldn't mistake this for the signal to let go, patted Samehada's broad head, and whispered, "I'm sorry, buddy."

Samehada stopped chewing on his arm, staying still and sucking a little.

Kisame clarified, "I learned some things over this weekend, things I did not know about you before. I had no idea. I'm sorry for being such a bad friend. I want to make it up to you."

Samehada wiggled his tail once and whined like a dog.

Kisame sighed. It was doubly stupid to have ever been worried, because he wasn't even responsible for making a decision. It wasn't his cue to give. "Would you like to come back with me?"

Samehada burst out crying.

Kisame leaned back too far and fell on his backside, propping himself up with his hands in astonishment. His mouth opened and closed but wouldn't make a sound. Samehada had never made sounds like this before, sounds so filled with pain. Kisame lunged forward and grabbed Samehada just below each pectoral fin, pulled him close so Samehada was muffled in his chest. Samehada let out a few more painful-sounding whines, then bit the collar of Kisame's work hoodie as if to say, _Never let go._ Kisame had no desire to.

He looked down at the gloves where he had discarded them. It wouldn't matter if he had the proper equipment if he was carrying Samehada, would it? _Wait…_ No, Kisame decided, it was better to bring them. The aquarium got dark after hours and Samehada might not be noticed initially, whereas the gloves were bright yellow. He grabbed them and put them on, still hugging Samehada as much as he could with his arms. He looked around for any of his supervisors. No supervisors around. "Let's go, buddy," he said, stroking Samehada's back. The shark reluctantly let go of his collar, and Kisame briefly wondered where he should go. Konan had said his original used Samehada as a sword. Where would a sword go? That question was solved when Samehada abruptly demonstrated how slippery he could be when he wanted to by slipping from Kisame's grasp, up over his head, and onto his back. Kisame wondered how the hell he could cling there. _Probably more of that magic chakra. _It wasn't important.

He picked up the bucket and made sure he looked as normal as possible before descending. Kisame would be facing with his back to the room if he climbed down the ladder, putting Samehada on display for anyone to see. _On the one hand, hell of a jump. On the other, I'm supposedly a ninja, so my body should be used to that, and Samehada could get taken back if I'm caught. _He jumped, gasping in surprise as he landed with his legs reflexively bending and his body rolling a little to take the force. _Since when do I have reflexes like that?_ No matter. It was go time.

He strolled nonchalantly to the doorway, keeping to the darkness and trusting Samehada to be quiet. He had almost reached it, when-

"Hey! Isn't this, uh, a little early?"

Kisame's heart skipped a beat. _Act natural. Keep Samehada facing away. _He did just that, turning to face the janitor lady. He'd been fast enough that he was leaving just before she started her rounds. _Shit. _"Yeah, it is. I have an appointment to get to with a friend. I need to get out a few minutes early. So, you should probably…"

She did not take the hint. "Oh. Well, if you can get out a few minutes early like this some other time, um...want to...hang out?"

Kisame's mind filled with a jumbled static of syllables that, if they were written down anywhere, would have had to be represented as a string of unusual symbols or risk rendering even Hidan speechless. _What the *^$&^ing *&$^*% *^$$ ^$!# & is wrong with this lady? _finished his thoughts on this matter. He said, more shortly than he really should have if his goal was stealth, "No. Not for the next several months. I have no desire to talk to you at all right now. Get the hell back to your job."

The janitor almost flinched back. "O...okay. I'm sorry. Did something bad happen recently? I'm sorry."

Before she could scamper away like Kisame wanted, he felt Samehada turn around and wriggle up his back, sticking his head out above Kisame's right shoulder. Samehada made a sustained waggling sound which closely resembled that of a very happy dog. She stopped backing away and looked up. Kisame froze. _Why would Samehada do that? _

She smiled. "Oh. Hi. Is something wrong?"

Samehada growled in a negative-sounding tone and thwacked Kisame on the head with a pectoral fin.

The janitor relaxed. "Doesn't sound like it. Okay, well...if you ever want to talk about anything…"

Kisame did not answer.

"I'm...um...around." And with that she finally skittered off.

Kisame stood there, staring after her. Samehada rumbled contentedly on his back. Kisame barely even noticed. _She...didn't even notice. _Samehada wriggled again and growled questioningly. Kisame blinked, recovered the ability to think, and walked back to change clothes like usual.

Kisame's mind was out beyond Jupiter as he took the gloves off. _That can't possibly be. Even before, when I didn't notice myself, I still didn't play with Samehada in public. It would've been… _What exactly would it have been? Kisame wracked his brains trying to remember his thought process from so long ago. _I didn't want any of my supervisors to walk in. I thought they would...__**punish me for slacking off on the job?**_ Kisame's mouth dropped open. _What… _

In the meantime, Samehada lay on the bench behind him, surprisingly comfortable on its flat surface. He licked hungrily at the air. Kisame went to some effort to reel his mind in. He was still in the middle of his mission, after all. He looked back at Samehada and noticed these things. "Why are you licking the air?"

Samehada nodded his head up and down and made sounds to suggest Kisame approach him.

If anyone else used this room at this time, they would have to have been hired over the weekend. Kisame sat down beside Samehada and held out an arm, which Samehada took and began munching on gladly. A terrifying thought came to Kisame, but for both their sakes he decided not to ask. It was good that Samehada had survived his "vacation" without any lasting harm. It was no use asking how. He took this opportunity to give his mind a break, relaxing and keeping all senses open while Samehada munched for as long as he wanted.

After a few minutes of peace and quiet, Kisame thought over the rest of his quest. _Okay, so the janitor lady doesn't see anything strange in me taking a shark from this place. What would she care? She has no interest in the displays. I should still watch out for any of my supervisors. There's no way money could have lost its power. _That much, he could depend on. _Too much caution can't possibly hurt. _

Samehada let go of his arm and sighed in contentment. Kisame patted his head, running a hand over the scales there and scratching near the dorsal fin like usual. He wasn't so extreme as to be blind to reality; too much caution could slow things down and make a plan less effective, which could hurt. On the other hand, all he had to do was leave the building and get to his car. There was a limit to how disruptive too much caution could be in this particular case. He tapped Samehada on the head, getting the shark's attention. Then, leaving Samehada perked up and alert on the seat, he went to the door and looked around, even walked out and down the hallway before patting a pocket and pretending he'd forgotten something. He did not sense any other people.

He jumped in alarm when he got back. _What the - _What he mistook for a fraction of a second for a human shape near the door turned out to be Samehada. Kisame stared at the shark, which had somehow learned how to hold his body upright and balance on his tail. Samehada greeted him and approached to nuzzle his arm, still holding this posture. Kisame raised his other hand to close his mouth. "Didn't see anyone. Let's go, buddy."

Samehada slithered onto his back immediately, and Kisame turned and looked up and down the hallway again. Still no sound or sight of another person. He made sure he had all his possessions, stepped out, and took pains to close and lock the door naturally. Then he forced his legs to walk naturally as well - it was amazing how stealthy his reflexes were - and walked out. His paranoia took a severe spike as he reached the staff exit. This seemed much too easy. There was no way he could encounter not so much as a hint of a problem. Or, at least, that was what his instincts said. Kisame wondered whether or not to tell that part of him to shut up. _No such thing as too much caution right now. _

Fortunately there was a limit to how far caution could be expressed. He kept all eyes and ears out for anyone as he walked to the car, which was all he could do. Realistically, he knew being on high alert now was doing nothing more than spiking his blood pressure and making him physically uncomfortable. Yet his instincts repeated over and over that this had all been _too easy. _

The only pseudoproblem he could claim to have was the fact that Samehada, thanks to having a fin on his back, could not sit normally in the car. He would have to face backward and hug the seat. Aside from that there was nothing. Samehada seemed perfectly happy as Kisame started the car and they drove away, wagging his tail in contentment the whole time. Kisame wondered what was wrong with him for the same. _Itachi's right. I do have a problem with too much paranoia. All my instincts are on high alert and expecting trouble when there isn't any. I don't live in the world my instincts seem convinced I do._

At that, the source of his problem became apparent. Kisame narrowed his eyes and growled. _Other-Me better not have left any other problems for me. _Samehada crawled up the seat and twisted to lick Kisame on the side of his face, as if he knew what Kisame was thinking. Kisame snorted. "Don't worry, Same. There's no trouble. I was just thinking of someone annoying." Samehada licked him again and settled down. His tongue would have been like sandpaper on any other person's skin. Kisame felt warm inside to consider this.

When they got back to base, Kisame finished stuffing his troublesome maladapted instincts in a box with one last violent effort and carried Samehada out of the car. Samehada did not make this easy, wiggling about as if he could sense the presence of other people in the air, which he probably could. Kisame put his friend down on the ground, thankful that Samehada's overly thick scales made this possible. The shark slithered right up to the door and just about _barked _as Kisame opened it, then raced inside.

When Kisame caught up to him, Hidan and Itachi were already there and drawing the attention of others. Itachi looked at Samehada carefully, probably thinking along the same lines as Kisame had before Konan showed up and told him what Samehada was. Hidan was cuddling with Samehada in his lap, laughing. Samehada growled. Hidan growled back, trying and failing to give his growl the same sharky tone. His inability to avoid sounding feline held none of them back from further laughter.

Hidan seemed recovered from his headache. Kisame did not wonder about this yet and settled for smiling at the adorableness. When Nagato stopped in to see what the noise was about, Hidan cheerfully exclaimed, "Sammy's here!" Samehada chose that moment to wriggle out of his arms and return to Kisame. Hidan waved "Bye Sammy" and Samehada actually _yawned _for the first time that Kisame had ever seen, so he waved back and took Samehada to his room.

**Samehada**

Samehada snuggled in Kisame's arms, inexpressibly happy even though he was tired. Human-cousin was here. Human-cousin was holding him and staying this time. The air tasted of so many people, all delicious. When Kisame got to his room and looked for a good place to put Samehada, the shark made his own choice. No matter what Kisame did he could not detach Samehada from his arms. Finally he was forced to give up, and leaned back into bed with Samehada still in his arms.

Samehada fell asleep with a purr, the happiest shark he'd been in forever. There could be no better place than nestled against his Human-cousin. Their body warmth combined came to about the same as a 100% warm-blooded human of Kisame's size would have had. It was gorgeous. Kisame did not know what Samehada would have said if he had been able to speak. At this point that was for the best.

**A/N: The day Kisame's death episode was first aired, Samehada set new world records for adorableness, broke them, and set yet newer ones. He's just the cutest little shark I have ever seen. This is what makes me so _angry_ at Kishimoto and/or the producers of the anime. Original Samehada is, at least nominally, a sword. That means he probably doesn't have a mortal lifespan. How many wielders is he going to bond with and lose? How long before he just stops bonding with people who use him entirely? Will he ever forget Kisame? Kishimoto and/or the producers of the anime should have thought of that before they decided that Samehada could cry. That's just not a fair thing to do to such a good shark.**

**I just now went back and deleted a thing I was going to include, because it's 100% talking about myself. I do that a lot. I'll try not to. Sorry. Look at how happy Sammy is!**


	17. Run Away no Jutsu

**A/N: And here it seems we have another cluster of chapters all set in the same day. Enjoy.  
**

**Konan**

Earlier in the day, Konan had found herself up in the crumbled corner of the roof again. The wind blew around it in the same way it had previously, so that if she closed her eyes the illusion of perching on the side of a wild mountain returned. She laid a perimeter of paper butterflies to warn her if anyone approached before settling in to maintain this illusion for as long as possible. She liked it.

With her claws (_No, just fingers. Where did that come from?_) dug into the stone beneath her, Konan took deep breaths. Finding Hidan passed out this morning had initially helped her mood. She had thought, _Good for him. I should ask how he came by this form of pain relief. _But, as the hours passed and her periodic checking revealed that he was still unconscious, Konan began to suspect that something might be wrong with him. Dangerously wrong. Her fingers now gripped the stone even more tightly, and she forced her mind back to taking slow, calming breaths.

Of course, the word "dangerous" barely applied to Hidan. No form of physical harm could kill him, except perhaps the kind that involved literally destroying the physical bonds that made up his body. Mentally, he seemed to be very resilient. He had to be with _that _power. On the one hand, this was true. On the other hand, he had died before. It wasn't even very difficult for his enemy to do, conceptually almost absurdly simple. Konan wondered about this paradox as she again reminded her breathing to slow down and tried to loosen her jaw. A low growl slipped out before she managed this last.

It was possible. She had no idea what that woman had done to him, after all. Konan's claws dug into the stone again and she didn't bother stopping another low growl. If he had any lasting harm… The image of ripping long, painful gouges into skin felt very satisfying. Konan did not have any doubts that she would do exactly this if Hidan was harmed. Her hands tightened. Paper rustled.

She opened her eyes, dispelling the illusion. It was just a building. She was not the top predator of some wild paradise. Even so, she was the top predator inside. Konan stood up. It had been almost half an hour. It was time to check on Hidan.

She paused in the doorway to his room, alert for anything else. Hidan was lying with his arms stretched above his head in a yawning posture, which was distinctly not how she had left him. Some small motion drew her eye instantly. His fingers curled slowly. She rushed forward and sat next to him, placing her hand on the back of his neck and feeling with her fingers down the sides. His heartbeat was up. Was he awake?

She kneeled down next to his head, observed his breathing. Hidan's eyelids twitched, then slowly opened. He looked in her eyes with a drowsy look. "Hey."

Konan stared back, looking for any signs of lasting damage. "How do you feel?"

Hidan closed his eyes again, yawned. "Sleepy. Feels like I had a good nap. What time is it?"

Konan, as a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Rain, was of course an expert at telling time from the sun even through thick cloud layers. "It is around 2:30 in the afternoon."

Hidan opened his eyes wider and yawned, then raised himself up a little. "Shit. I don't usually sleep _that _long. What the fuck?"

Konan looked sharply back at him. "That's what I wish to know. What happened last night, Hidan?"

Hidan stopped, tilted his head. "Ummm…" _Oh, crap. _Konan rewound her memories back to his description of his memory problems. _How strange…he only mentioned forgetting things he himself did. Perhaps his memory of events that happen to him is unaffected. That would be very good. _Ignoring the low probability of something that specific, she waited for him to come up with whatever he could come up with.

"I remember there was this crying lady," he began. "That was weird as shit. Did you find out if she actually was a lady or not?"

Konan tilted her head quizzically. "What do you mean by that?"

Hidan sighed. "I didn't feel anything. Even after I heard her and I was paying attention to her, which helps me pick up the signals and shit, I didn't feel anything like crying. That's frickin' weird, which is why I was going over to find out what the fuck was happening."

Konan came to sit beside him. "Why does that make you question whether or not she was a woman?"

Hidan got a _great _idea and moved quicker than before, putting his head in her lap before she could resist. As he awkwardly rolled onto his back, taking care to lift his lower back clear of the bed before settling down gingerly to look up at her, he replied, "This isn't the first time I've been unable to get signals from people. It's only happened once before, but I'm pretty sure I know what causes it."

Konan lifted her hand slowly, lowered it, then decided _to hell with it _and curled her hand around Hidan's head to scratch around his ear. "Describe everything about this."

Hidan smiled and shuddered in pleasure. "There's not much to tell, really. _Oh yes. _The thing I mean, with once before, is _Yes yes that, that is a good ring of cartilage to be tickling _it's actually with one person before. Not a time, a person. If I can't get signals from someone, I can't, and that doesn't change. Earlobe?"

She obliged. "Ooh. Low-grade shit that leaves me wanting more. I love that sometimes. Yeah, um, you remember that demon kid? You remember how I had to figure out he was there and messing with us? Yeah, I don't get feelings from him either. I figured the most likely explanation is that it's because of the biggest difference, which is that he's _a fucking demon_, so I think being a demon causes that."

Konan kept tickling his earlobe with her thumb, and shifted her hand to scratch behind his ear with a pinkie. "If that's correct, the woman in the bar is a demon."

Hidan turned his head to bury his face in her stomach. "Yeah. I'm sorry for reflexively kicking her in the crotch. She's probably going to be mad and might come back now."

Konan patted his head. "That could be a very dangerous mistake, yes. But, I will be lenient with you this time. If she was unable to stop you from hurting her and was able to be hurt in the first place, it's unlikely she is as powerful as that boy is."

Hidan looked up and grinned. "Yeah! There are all kinds of demons in stories. Could all of them be real?" His eyes grew big. "That is the _coolest research project ever._"

Konan tapped her knuckles against his ear lightly. "Back to last night. So you remember reflexively kicking her in the genitals. A reflex is always a response to something. Why did you kick her? What did she do?" _What are my chances of being able to render her limb from limb?_

Hidan took her hand and held it as his face became totally blank. "I think she touched me…?"

Konan squeezed his hand. "Touched you how?" she asked patiently. "The demon boy was very invasive in his dealings with us, and you did not react. You don't dislike touching in general. What did she do that was different?"

Hidan frowned. He said, "I don't know. I just...I think… Did she even touch me? I think she did, but also didn't, and everything was _weird. _I don't know what the fuck happened!"

Some muscles in Konan's face tightened invisibly. What could he mean by that? What kind of touch could be remembered so poorly? Never mind that, how could he fail to remember anything that had inflicted so much pain? _And it all comes full circle. _She looked down at Hidan, and informed him in a gentle but firm voice that he'd better get comfortable. Hidan got a faint worried look on his face.

The interrogation began.

"Describe to me the full extent of your memory problems."

"Well, I told you some of it when we got me this awesome cloak. Sounds to me like you want a recap, so… Kakuzu has told me before that I seem to lose my memory of certain things. He says sometimes I say or do things that don't make any fucking sense or seem to him like something I wouldn't usually say. He asks me about them, even quoting me exactly, and I have no fucking clue what he's talking about. It sounds just as weird to me as it did to him. The funny thing is, sometimes after some interesting thing happens he gets this funny look in his face, and when I ask he says it's just like something I mentioned before. It made no sense and I didn't remember it then, but it makes perfect sense now. But there's no way I could have known about that shit."

"Are those the only things you fail to remember?"

"I think so. Well, actually, Kakuzu says that sometimes when a certain thing comes up I change the topic and get really evasive. I don't forget about it, but some things I try not to remember too much about. Does that count?"

"What things?"

"I don't have a list, like, memorized. Give me a sec." A minute or two later: "Well, I don't like hanging around religious people very much. I love talking about that shit, it's important, but it's different to be near it. I get a little shy about other's people holy things. I don't think I even know where a church is in this town, actually. I know there is one, but I almost don't want to know where it is. Umm…" 15 seconds later: "I got freaked out by an abstract painting once. It was all different colors mingling together so one end was some color and the other end was completely different and all the corners were completely different and there were spots of colors in there, but you couldn't see where anything changed." Hidan shivered from picturing it in his mind. "Don't ask me what colors were where. I don't want to look at it."

"How ironic. Your original was highly religious. Do you want to hear more about that?"

"Ummm…" Hidan put a hand to his chest, feeling his heartbeat again. "No?"

"You just said you enjoy talking about religion."

"That's different! I come from Other-Me and I still have a bunch of his personality and abilities and shit. Something super important like that, I probably still have some kind of connection to. Why do I need to hear more about it?" Hidan's tone started irritated and ended downright defiant. He crossed his arms and turned his head to look out at the room with a glare.

Konan decided this was a time where she needed to be cruel. As an added bonus, it would probably be really funny. She reached for a writing implement and produced a sheet of paper. On this she drew a symbol of Jashin large enough to take up the whole page. Then she shoved it in front of Hidan's eyes. He flinched and looked back towards her. She move the paper to follow him and suppressed a mischievous giggle as she pushed the paper down onto his face on a whim. His whole body jerked as he yelled. Konan no longer needed to suppress anything; it was a yell of pure discomfort and pain. She took the paper away, hid it behind herself. Hidan's face was contorted, muscles twitching like waves passing through his face. He whimpered and spent the next three minutes scrubbing his cheeks, brow, mouth, anywhere the symbol had touched.

Konan sat still, watching him and letting the pangs her conscience was sending roll through her. _What was I doing? The avoidance was enough proof of a strange reaction to the symbol. I didn't need to do that. He said these things could invoke actual fear and pain. Did I think invoking that was funny? _Yes, yes she had. And up until he yelled, it had been. His scrubbing was almost painful to watch. She continued to look.

Eventually Hidan opened his eyes and looked up at her, rubbing one cheek. Konan braced for him to ask her, "What the fuck was that for?!" She would not have an answer for him when he did. All she would be able to do was apologize. As she resigned herself and prepared an apology in her head, Hidan finished rubbing his cheek. Then he looked up at her. His expression bore no distrust or confusion. "Ugh. My face feels funny."

Konan blinked. "What?"

He repeated, "My face feels funny." Then he shivered. "I know, I know, who the fuck is afraid of colors, I should get my head checked, all that shit. Promise, it was just that _one time_. I haven't freaked out like that before or since. I'm cool with most shit. I can do whatever you need me to."

Konan stared down at him again. "Are you talking about your reaction to the painting with the colors?"

Hidan grew as confused as she was. "Yeah," he muttered. "Is something wrong?"

"What did we talk about after you mentioned the painting?"

"Did we?" Hidan blushed. "Aw shit. _Fuck._ Wait - is that a good thing? What did I forget? Did it tell you anything?"

Konan considered. "Yes. It did tell me something. After you mentioned the colors, I went back to the religious items. I found that strange because your original was highly religious. You demonstrated much stronger avoidance of the topic of _his _religion than any other, since you said you generally like to talk about religions, but you got angry and refused to talk about his. Then I drew the symbol of his religion on a sheet of paper and confronted you with it. You reacted as if it was causing you actual pain. It's why your face feels strange now. Then you seem to have forgotten about the entire subject of your original's religion ever being raised."

Hidan rubbed his cheek. "I'm getting kind of squirrelly just thinking of that. So what'd you learn?"

"It seems that discomfort is related to your memory problems, after all. If your discomfort is increased to a certain point, you protect yourself by getting rid of the memory of it."

Hidan stopped rubbing. "I _hate _Freud. Wait...that's another thing I'm getting uncomfortable about. What the fuck?"

"What is Freud?"

Hidan grimaced as if facing something deeply unpleasant. "Freud's this guy who came up with the idea of people having unconscious parts of our minds which hold onto things we can't or don't wanna deal with. And some other things, but I really don't want to think about him any more. What the fuck?"

Konan wondered aloud, "That _is _an important question. Where are your memories going in your mind when you 'forget' them?"

Hidan's arm, still up near his face, shot out to the side and hit her in the stomach. It was not a blow intended to seriously injure, but it was still a blow. Hidan froze and flushed. "Sorry…"

Konan relaxed. As soon as his arm had started moving she had tensed and now had one hand gripping his wrist and the other already having drawn a kunai. She took a few moments to collect herself and put it back. "No. The apologies are mine. I do know how to raise a question like that in my head, I simply did not take the necessary measure to avoid provoking you. At any rate, that was a much better reaction than forgetting. I would rather you allow that question to stay in your conscious mind as much as it can."

Hidan relaxed too. "Yeah. You shouldn't have to think of things all by yourself. I wanna help."

She patted his head. "So it seems your memory is linked to two things: information you shouldn't have, and subjects that make you very uncomfortable. I can't be sure of anything now, but there's a possibility that the two could have further links to each other. Take this." She handed him a paper. "Anytime you have a disproportionate reaction, write down your best guess as to what caused that reaction. Write down some other things too to help you remember the whole situation. If you end up with an extensive or interesting list and we have the free time to go over it, tell me."

Hidan took it and turned to bury his face in her stomach again.

"That was a polite way of implying we should get up now, Hidan."

"Awww…" He looked up with pleading eyes, but not serious ones. He did get up and swing his feet over to the floor to avoid falling on his face after a few seconds. "You're so comfy though…"

Konan could still feel his warmth on her lap. _As are you. _"Don't worry. I'm not leaving just yet."

She stood and bent down to examine him. "How do you feel, physically?"

**Sasori**

Sasori returned to the base very shortly after 5:00. After closing the door behind him, he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. _Whew. _His heart was beating wildly, a feeling he was forced to admit to himself that he enjoyed. Just a little. That was probably normal considering that "ninja" sounded like a very active position, but it clashed with his lifestyle. He did not consider telling anyone else unless bluntly asked.

He checked that his contraband did not make any distinctive noise or bulge in his pocket, and headed to the kitchen. Even if they still hadn't gotten a fridge to keep food in, something about the room was intrinsically appealing. He thought that might have something to do with its two entryways. Less space to be trapped, just like his work space.

Sasori ran through everything he had just been through, putting it to words in case he ever decided to share it as a story. The thought that he might do that someday was also oddly enjoyable. It seemed he had more appreciation for the company of others than he thought. He wondered if he wanted to make any changes to the story for entertainment's sake, then decided against. The truth was enough.

It had all started around 3, when the manager stopped in his doorway. That was _never _good news, even when he was stopping in to tell you it was break time. _My boss must be one of the most talented men in the world to ruin break time._ This was, of course, not break time. Sasori only got two breaks in his day: one for lunch, and one if he requested it in such a way that the manager couldn't make up a reason to refuse. He'd immediately slipped on his invisible suit of protective armor and continued to do what he was doing without looking or making any sign that he had noticed the man. The one rule of jungle survival: never show weakness.

The manager attempted to counter this move with his own: loom menacingly in the hopes of overwhelming the prey's ability to mask their anxiety. Little did he know just how good Sasori's mask was, or how little anxiety Sasori felt. It wasn't because the manager seemed harmless in any way, it was just a general thing. Sometimes Sasori wondered if he wasn't missing out on the emotional highs people with high reactivity seemed to enjoy, but far more often he had reason to be grateful he missed out on the lows. It seemed as if he had been custom designed for this kind of job.

Seeing that his countermove wasn't working, the manager walked up to Sasori and loomed closer. He didn't have any way of getting his employees to cower that wasn't illegal, so this was the best he could do. Sasori knew from general experience that the man's frustration would escape confinement long before his anxiety did. It took a long 5 minutes, during which Sasori was happy to note that this had begun just as he started to work on something and while he was next to some drawers, so he was able to root around in the drawers and draw out the task, pretending to be productive while the manager just stood there like a statue early for its appointment with a pigeon.

Eventually the man couldn't take it any longer. "You, engineer," he snapped his fingers. "I have some questions for ya."

Sasori put some random thing back in the drawer and stood up, deliberately taking no notice of the snapping. "Yes?" he inquired.

The manager grunted. "You been sneaking away from your space, boy?"

"No. I have only taken my lunch break for today, with your approval."

The manager's eyes narrowed. "You been up to anything on that 'break'?"

_Aside from secretly recording the sound of your voice so I can edit the recordings together into a compilation and post it on a comedy website? No, nothing at all. _"Just eating."

"Nothing else, boy?"

_Well, this is the first time I've skipped that in favor of going through your office. I hope I didn't miss any good moments. _"Nothing else. Why do you ask?"

The manager puffed out his chest and fixed Sasori with a pointed glare. "Because I got two employees in this business, and only one of them has been out of my direct sight today."

Sasori put on his concerned face. "Oh, no. Did something happen?"

"Damn right! I come back to my office after your little 'lunch break' and find that _someone _seems to have been going through my desk! _My private desk containing managerial papers._ I didn't hear nothing from the burglar alarms, so my pool of suspects is runnin' mighty low."

_...That's really smart, actually. Set up a decoy target that someone would be expected to go for first before realizing it was a decoy, and make the decoy something highly complex that only you understand so they can't put it back in order. If the decoy being disorganized activated some kind of trap around the real thing, that could be a very good tactic… _"That's terrible. Is anything important missing? Do I need to look for information to help you rebuild some files?"

The manager nodded grimly. "I noticed a certain _very important _document was missing, and I do think you can help me rebuild my records. Starting with returning that document!"

_Oh, crap. _The integrity of Sasori's mask provided a secondary layer of shielding after his anxiety spiked, giving him time to get under control. _He's not smart enough to notice anything's out of order. He's just lucky enough to be keeping track of the one paper that looked vaguely interesting to me. I knew this. I thought that exact thought when I was in there, but I didn't follow it. I screwed up. _Sasori made up something on the fly, not knowing whether or not it might get him in further trouble. "If you think the document was misplaced somewhere around here, I'd be happy to help you look. I just need to know what was on it. I keep some records of my own about how repairs proceeded, and it would take some time to read each piece of paper all the way through to see if it's yours or mine. What should I be looking for?"

The manager's face twisted in a strange way for a short moment. Sasori sighed internally. _Just as planned. _They were both in uncharted waters here, they would both have to make things up on the fly. Sasori was close to sure that he was better at this than his boss was. As long as that was true, and as long as he didn't make any more stupid mistakes, he was nearly in the clear.

The manager twisted and spluttered. _Looks like I was right. _The man took a few seconds before spitting, "Did you just ask to know what was on my confidential papers, boy?!"

Sasori replied, as smoothly as melted ice cream, "No. I only asked if it had some distinctive title, or an unusual font, or if it has long paragraphs on it. None of my papers have a title, or are typed, or have long written passages. I could tell if it was not mine at a glance, without reading a word."

The manager opened and closed his mouth in angry silence. He knew as well as Sasori did that his paper had sections on it with very large, eye-catching titles having to do with the accounts of the shop and his personal accounts. Sasori would not have noticed a thing if it did not. The man had the freakin' name of his personal bank, which had nothing to do with their business whatsoever, right at the top. _Ka-ching. _

Sasori took the opportunity to weigh his options. His boss thought he had the paper, and probably wouldn't have calmed down even if he had been able to produce bulletproof evidence he did not. Even if he had been able to produce such evidence, it would have changed not a damn thing. That was kind of freeing, in a way. When everything one does produces the same outcome, one can do anything they want with no fear of punishment. Inevitability.

The likely outcome could take one of two forms: the manager would either fire him, or he would not. Worse fates like legal action were out of the question. Sasori evaluated the odds of each outcome. _If he fires me while I have something he wants, he both loses his chance to get it back and frees me to maybe pursue legal action against him since he can't punish me anymore. If he's smart enough to realize any part of this, he won't fire me. But is he smart enough, that is the question._

_If he doesn't fire me, he has every opportunity to make my life a living hell. I'll become the new chew toy instead of the front-desk lady. I'm not sure about what he can do to stop me or threaten me if I decide to quit. Quitting isn't a justification for retaliation, and I don't think he's brave enough to try anything in real life even if he knew I had one. On the other hand, I actually like my job and don't want to quit. Crap. What are my options? _

The manager stormed off, unable to think of a response. Sasori hadn't said anything incriminating, and he couldn't reveal his reason for keeping Sasori from helping without incriminating himself first. Once the door slammed, Sasori was unable to stop himself from smiling. This too was freeing. He had already set everything in motion. What outcome would appear, he had no control over. The options-evaluating could be done at his leisure. Sasori bent down to his work again, and completed the last two things he had to do in thirty seconds. Much as he had wanted to delay the man earlier, he simply could not resist doing his actual job.

Sasori made an extra effort to hurry up so he could get out in decent time. He wondered what exactly _had _happened last night, and supposed he was curious about Hidan and his condition. A sharp pain in his finger interrupted this thought. _What the hell? I don't usually do that. _As he rubbed the pinched finger that he had foolishly allowed to get in the way, he heard the manager's chair creak as he shifted inside his office. Sasori realized he was keeping an ear out for his boss' activities. _Why am I keeping an ear out for him? _The next second the chair creaked as the man stood up, and Sasori felt his heart take a wild leap. He picked up his tools and set to work again, suddenly aware that his desire to get home fast had nothing to do with anything outside the shop.

For the first and only time in his life, Sasori became aware after a few more jolts of awareness that he was doing sloppy work. He did not like doing sloppy work. _This isn't worth it. I have keys, I lock up my own space at night, I'll come back really late and do a proper job when he isn't here. _The manager's steps were heavy and frenzied sounding. Sasori realized he technically had an hour left. His boss could begin the punishment _now. _Sasori found himself seriously considering praying at Konan's feet as strings flew out, gathering all his things without taking up time he was irrationally convinced he didn't have. _What am I doing, and why? I already considered the possibility that he would make my work life hellish. Why would him doing that now instead of tomorrow make any difference? Could he do something worse today that wouldn't happen tomorrow? How bad could anything be to make me feel like this? _Regardless, Konan had made such casual mentions of death and murder. It was likely some of his instincts had been inherited from a world where people literally tried to kill him.

That was how Sasori rationalized that it made perfect sense for him to be slipping out the door at a pace that nearly made him trip over the waist-high bicycle that stood in plain sight outside, almost glowing in the sunlight. He swallowed the self-recrimations in favor of scanning his surroundings for any reason why there was a child's bicycle outside his place of work. _No way some kid left it here. I'm not near any houses. What the hell is going on?_

There was nothing. Sasori caught himself breathing hard, looking frantic (by his standards) and thinking with a tone of voice he had never known himself to employ. _I...I'm getting paranoid. _There was no sign of danger. There was nothing but bicycle tracks in the dirt. They seemed unusually shallow. _Maybe somebody walked it here? _He gave that thought the consideration it was due as a reasonable alternative, then tossed it in the trash. There were no footprints. Besides, now that he was making some effort to calm down and look more closely, he could see that this bicycle was broken. Its chain kinked in a way that could not allow it to move, and the front wheel was bent. It would have had to be driven here. There were no car tracks either.

There was a limit to how much Sasori could calm down. Just as soon as he reached that limit, the sound of the inside door to his work space slamming sent his heart into overdrive again. Sasori reached out and grabbed the bicycle, holding it to his side with both hands as he ran. He had no idea if the small window in his space was enough for the manager to see him do this. A few seconds later, as he leaped over a fallen branch with a grace that made this ninja idea seem quite plausible, he remembered to be grateful that this bicycle was small enough for him to do this.

At precisely 5:00, Sasori wiped the bicycle clean with a corner of his shirt as he caught his breath in his little garage. The oily sheen from his hands on its frame made his shirt damp. It would have to do. He dried his hands on his pants and lifted the bicycle again, carrying it to a relatively sheltered corner. There he stood it up on its stand, leaning it against the table for extra support. Then he left, closing up the garage and promising that he would return later and do something for it.

Now, in the kitchen, Sasori sat and caught his breath. Yes, it would make one hell of a story. Although, telling it would involve revealing just how not-calm he could get, which sounded like a death blow to his dignity. _Let's table that for now. _He had a bicycle with a broken wheel to attend to. This was no time to be crying over his pride.

Hidan walked in to check on him. He seemed as if he had not suffered for a single second in the past week. _Hangover? What hangover? _Sasori didn't have the energy to ask anything just yet, so he remained sitting and listened with half an ear to Hidan chattering on about his great ideas for the rooms and how he'd looked up where he would get stuff and how Konan would help and on and on and on. The background chatter was nice, somehow, which was why Sasori went along with Hidan pulling him to his feet by the arm and dragging him to the first training room so Hidan could chatter with arm gestures. The arm gestures seemed a little hypnotic. Sasori wondered if that was strange. He didn't care, it was pleasant.

After some time of this, Hidan was finally spent. He turned to Sasori, did not detect any hint of irritation, and considered himself highly successful. Their time together was interrupted by Hidan's stomach growling, compelling him to go and investigate this disturbance to his internal environment. Sasori leaned against the wall and tried to picture what Hidan had been trying to illustrate for him. He continued leaning like this until Deidara burst in and dragged him by the arm to hear "super interesting news about last night, yeah!"

**A/N: I screwed up. Last week, a little before posting the last chapter, I realized I'd made a mistake with my omake policy. My policy as I posted it on the first chapter depended on real-time interaction. I can't believe it took me this long to realize that the vast majority of whatever audience this story will eventually acquire will be reading this _in the future, _and therefore not in a position to be suggesting things. My policy would have been fine if each chapter had a few months to sit and get stumbled upon as other stories do, but I'm posting too fast for that. **

**Therefore, I am now editing my omake policy. The original policy stated that if I did not get any suggestions, I would not write anything. Since that's all but guaranteed, I am forced to write things _anyway. _This chapter seemed like a good place to start.**

.

_**Sasori and Deidara get**_**_ blasted_**

Sasori had a day off. Well, he actually didn't, but he never did. That had never stopped him from taking the occasional one every few months. He now sat on an isolated bench, chewing on some sticks of whatever had been around his kitchen just to keep from being bored. He wondered why he took days off like this. The occasional few hours off was fine, but he had never figured out what other people did to use up a whole day. Why did he even bother? He supposed it was the principle of the thing, not that he had any idea what that principle was.

The last bite of the current stick of celery was flabby and did not crunch at all. He started a new one. If he had been capable of doing so, he still probably wouldn't have wondered why he even stayed at his current job. Then again, maybe he would have. It would take several years to discover it, but he was full of surprises. Sasori did not have any surprises for himself at this time, so he sat and wondered what to do.

Of course, there was the classic staycation, where he sat on a comfy couch at home and read a book or something. That was always his first attempt at an activity, and it worked for maybe an hour and a half before he always ended up cutting sticks of celery and hitting the streets from sheer boredom. Been there, tried that.

Next came what he was currently doing, which was sitting around and trying to find something interesting to look at in his environment. This was more difficult than the average Joe would have thought. For one thing, Sasori was very mechanically oriented. That meant his attention would be best focused on something mechanical, which was exactly what he was busy not doing. Why did he put himself through this torture? Sometimes Sasori wondered if there was something else he was looking for. Something that might swoop in and capture his interest against his will, kidnap it to a faraway land full of magic and adventure. In other words, he wondered if he was looking to meet anybody. Yeah, what were the odds of that.

He tried to people watch, but nobody was doing anything besides walking around and talking in tones he couldn't hear over the road noise. He tried to road watch instead. A shiny, new, cheap car was cruising in from his left at faster than the speed limit, and in the distance Sasori saw a beat up junker moving towards him at significantly slower than the speed limit. No other vehicles were around. Sasori mentally classified each one and tried to imagine what sort of maintenance problems they had, how long they had been on the road, that sort of thing. His hand touched empty plastic. He looked down rather than look like a blind man feeling around for the last piece.

There was the sound of screeching. Sasori's head jerked up in time to see the junker skid through the intersection. It had either teleported or accelerated faster than that make of car was physically capable of doing. The new car had not, and now turned to its right, the same way the junker was skidding. Classic rookie mistake. The turning and braking was too extreme for any car to control, so the new car skidded slightly instead of stopping. Whoever was in there was damn lucky that they had turned so extremely as they had. Sasori was in position to see the driver's side door fly open and somebody leap out, rolling down the slight slope and away to safety just as their car was smashed on the road above.

Sasori started, but did not get up from his seat. That right there was an action-movie performance. He did not think any further in this line but instead hmmmm'd in respect. That was somebody with good reflexes. Then the cars exploded.

This time he jumped straight up. Before Sasori was aware of his actions, he was leaping the last few feet to reach the lucky roller, thankfully already on his feet and running away. They both fell to the ground as the blast wave shook the ground and set their ears ringing. Something went flying. Sasori fell back and scrunched his eyes shut, did not move for several seconds. Thanks to his red hair, the runner noticed this before he saw the blood pooling beneath Sasori's head.

Sasori woke up with a splitting headache from the noise. His vision fuzzed around the edges as the wailing droned on, and on, and on. It was so painful that Sasori could not breathe. The pain froze every muscle he could tense, holding his lungs still in their cage. He struggled to draw breath, but it was impossible. His vision was fuzzing and darkening, and Sasori was thinking with what was left of his mind that he had never prepared a will, when mercy came. Wads of something soft, stuffed into his ears. The wailing sounded like it was coming from underwater, and Sasori was able to draw small breaths. His headache no longer split.

He opened his eyes when the terrible sound finally left. The runner looked down on him from above, and decided to remove the wads. The distant echo of the wailing made Sasori wince, but it faded quickly. Sasori opened his eyes again and looked around. He was lying on his back, his head in the runner's lap and the rest of his body on a bench identical to the one at which he had been sitting just prior. How much time had passed?

"You okay?" the runner asked. His hair was streaked with red, his shirt too. Sasori wondered who had plucked the glass out.

"Alive," Sasori replied.

It was enough. The runner grinned widely. "Did you see me jump just in time, yeah?" he whispered. "How'd I look? Freakin' stunning, yeah?"

Sasori stared blankly. Oh gods, the runner was an overenthusiastic kid. He continued to smile brightly, even more so after looking up at the wrecks that were still on fire, that could have been his funeral pyre. His blue eyes shone with glee. Sasori wondered now _if _the glass had been plucked out. He moved the fingers on his right hand, found that they still worked. Sasori lifted his hand, tried to point out the bloody streaks in the kid's hair.

The kid saw and looked down. "What?" he asked obliviously. For some reason he could not specify, Sasori did not feel like speaking was a good idea, so he pulled the kid's blond ponytail. "Ow," the kid muttered, rescuing his ponytail and looking at it closely enough to see the streaks. "Oh! Don't worry, hm. One of the ambulance people insisted on looking at me, got all the glass out. You shielded me from the worst, anyway, yeah."

The kid smiled brightly at Sasori now. "I'm Deidara," he offered. "That was so cool, yeah! I didn't even see you, then you were running toward me, then you kind of rolled over me when the blast happened and took most of it. That was so heroic, yeah! Who are you, some kind of hero?"

Sasori was well aware of the dangers associated with moving one's head after a major trauma, so he gave a thumbs down.

"Oh, that makes it cooler!" Deidara exclaimed. "Do you have a car around here? I could drive you home if you wrote it down, hm."

Sasori gave him a disbelieving glare, but in the end was forced to relent.

.

He felt much better after arriving home. The soft jolts of his car as he lay in the backseat had loosened up his neck muscles, so Sasori could be fairly sure that he was not going to die from basic movements. He was aware of how sneaky internal decapitation could be, so he avoided moving his head to the sides, but otherwise all seemed to be well. The rest of his body was fully intact too, with no major wounds or fractures to be felt.

As soon as they were safely inside and away from prying eyes, he slapped Deidara alongside the face. "Ow!" the blond idiot yelped. "What was that for, huh?!"

"You just barely jumped clear of your own funeral pyre," Sasori informed him. How could anyone be so dense? "You were about to die."

"Yeah, but I didn't, hm. My reflexes were good enough to handle it, I was fine, yeah," the blond idiot retorted. He crossed his arms and looked at Sasori as if Sasori was punishing him unfairly.

"You would have burned to a crisp in your shiny, new car," Sasori stated with his flattest tone of voice. Before Deidara could say anything, he continued, "It doesn't matter who was at fault, it doesn't matter what you did or didn't do wrong. Nothing matters to the dead anymore. If you'd like to keep your sense of anything intact, avoid doing that."

Deidara pushed his hair back in annoyance. "You just said I didn't do anything!"

Sasori clarified, "I was saying that if you died, no amount of innocence would change that. But in the future, if you want to reduce your chances of vaporizing, you should not carry around explosives in your car."

"What- "

"Cars don't explode like that in real life, not unless they're helped to." Sasori walked into the living room as he said this, returning with his work coat that clearly showed he worked for the only auto repair shop in town.

"Um," Deidara raised a finger to point out, "It was a science project, hm."

"Then you are bad at science," Sasori deadpanned. "Highly unstable science projects are performed in a lab, under full shielding. The only reason for using something so unstable is in an experiment. Explosives that see the light of day are designed to be very stable unless they're exposed to just the right trigger, which is usually _not _force or heat, despite what you see in movies."

The blond's eyes twitched. "It maybe wasn't a science project _yet,_" he admitted. "I was going to show it off and suggest it as one."

"That's even worse. If you hadn't been hit, it probably would have been set off by some clumsy classmate of yours."

"..."

Sasori wondered why he cared.

"I'm going into the military after I finish school, hm," the blond exclaimed.

"Make sure you learn how to properly mess with explosives while you're there, don't get anyone killed, and don't die," Sasori instructed.

"Why the fuck do you care, hm? You're not my dad or anything!"

"..."

The kid was right. Why was he concerned?

"About my dad... how's my car going to be?"

Sasori did not shake his head no, but instead narrowed his eyes at the stupid kid even further.

"Oh, crap."

Sasori patted him on his thick blond head.

**Wait. I'm pretty sure I had a completely different vision of how they met, involving Deidara taking his car into the shop and a much more involved discussion of his plans. How on earth did this happen? I blame the title.**

**Darn, now I'm going to have to revise my headcanon...**


	18. Pick Up The Pace

**A/N: Hooray! Dear everyone: open the last bowl of Halloween candy and serve yourself dinner on fine china, because I have received my first review! This first ever review was submitted late in the evening on November 4th by Guest on the first chapter of this story. Guest's review was, "You really don't have a single review?" I can't quite tell what mood that text is supposed to be in, but any and all moods are fine ones for such a day as this.  
**

**In response to Guest, who will probably never read this, no, I did not. The Naruto manga and anime ended some time ago, so though I have not looked at any stats I would assume that activity in this section of this website is low and getting lower. Any fans who want to think more about the show are probably reading about Boruto by now. There's also a possibility that my writing style is not the preferred style of many people, which is okay, and a greater (in my mind) possibility that my personal expression is annoying. By the time I post this, I will also have submitted an edited version of the first chapter which will hopefully make me sound less annoying. There are several things in that first author's note that do not need to be there. **

**18 is a fine number, the number of so many other milestones in life. Also 17 is one of my favorite prime numbers. I couldn't have asked for a better milestone number in either case. Thank you!**

**.**

**Konan**

That same day at around 6 o'clock, almost everyone had come back except Kisame. This time, they gathered of their own accord. Hidan was eating a banana when Itachi found him in the kitchen and hesitantly approached. Hidan looked at the banana questioningly. It didn't look any different, but somehow he did not feel like eating. He felt a lot like every tissue in his body had been disturbed in some way. Before Itachi could say anything, Hidan turned in his seat with an accusing glare. Then he stuck his tongue out at Itachi and muttered, "Thanks a lot for ruining my banana, jackass."

Itachi wondered why a banana was important. "Why is the banana important?"

Hidan looked at him like he was being very stupid. "Because I was eating it, of course."

Itachi shook his head. "A banana is not more important than blood."

Hidan's ears perked up. "_Now _we're talking! That is a 100% correct statement." He took another bite of the banana, fending off the disturbance for a few seconds to enjoy it. He swallowed. "What blood?"

Itachi winced internally at the memory of it. "Last night, after the first incident with the woman, as you were coming back to the table I believe, the people near where you confronted the woman started bleeding. It was not clear where they were bleeding from or why."

Hidan stared at him blankly. "There was bleeding last night? I don't remember any bleeding."

"Do you remember anything that could possibly have caused bleeding?"

Hidan's body tensed somewhat. His eyes moved up to look in a corner of the room as he mumbled, "Nope. Don't remember any fucking thing about bleeding." He put down the banana and started scratching his head. It seemed more of a compulsion than an actual pleasure.

Itachi's eyes narrowed. Perhaps he could get Kakuzu or Konan to help him with this. Before he could leave and find anyone, Kakuzu walked in. He looked between the two of them. "What are you two talking about?"

Hidan paused in his scratching, said, "Bleeding," then continued. His legs waved back and forth as if he really wanted to go somewhere else.

Kakuzu looked at Itachi. Itachi reminded him of the bleeding at the incident last night, then subtly indicated Hidan. Kakuzu nodded slightly and narrowed his eyes. With a calculating look on his face, he crossed the room to loom over Hidan. "Hidan."

The younger man looked at the last few bites of his banana very sadly. "I don't want to talk about bleeding, okay? Itachi's giving me all kinds of disturbed feelings about it that feel bad. I don't know shit."

Kakuzu's hands clenched. "What happened last night, Hidan?"

Only Itachi was at the right angle to see Hidan's face get an actual frightened look on it. Hidan scratched his head even more roughly and muttered, "The lady touched me, or something. I kicked her in the crotch. Shit happened."

Kakuzu tilted his head and sighed. "Damnit. Is that really all you- "

Hidan stood up very quickly. "Fuck you!" he shouted, then ran out of the room.

Yahiko was next to appear in the far doorway. "Is everything okay?" he asked. Nagato appeared behind him, as usual.

Itachi kept a calm look on his face as he replied, "Hidan seems to be very sensitive to questions about last night." Actually, it was his thinking look. He kept only half a mind on the conversation, preferring to analyze the situation. If only he had thought to use the Sharingan!

Kakuzu clarified, "He's very sensitive about a number of things, all of which are the exact things anyone with a brain in their heads would most want to know about. I hate to say it, but we're actually _lucky _he only ran away. I've pushed him too far before. All that results in is him forgetting the question ever happened. Damn frustrating amnesiac kid…" His growl reinforced that last point.

Yahiko relaxed a little. "Ah. So nobody's really hurt or anything?"

Itachi shook his head.

Nagato's one visible eye focused on Kakuzu. "What do you mean he just forgets the question ever happened?"

Deidara walked in, nudging Yahiko out of the way so he could carry his shopping bags inside. "Hey guys! I, uh, went shopping, hm." He had a different smile on his face than anyone had ever seen before.

Yahiko raised a hand in greeting. "Hey, Dei. Apparently Hidan doesn't want to talk about last night. He ran away."

Dei's happy smile settled into a more serious expression that the others also had not seen before. "What about last night? There's a lot that happened there, yeah."

Kakuzu grumbled. "That's it. I'm not in the mood to repeat myself. Get anyone else who wants to know in here already so I don't have to."

Deidara looked at the others. "Has anyone seen Sasori?" They had not. He went to look.

Nagato mentioned that Kisame would not return until much later, but he seemed to have something on his mind so he probably wouldn't care. Kakuzu's shoulders slumped a little at that. It seemed himself and the shark-man were the only reasonable people in the whole base.

Deidara returned, dragging Sasori by the arm. "He was hiding in a training room, hm."

Sasori would have rolled his eyes if he had felt like doing so. His voice was monotone. "I stole documents from my boss today, he knows I did, he's going to make the rest of my working life a living hell, and I was actually forced to run because I got the feeling something very bad was about to happen. I also have a bicycle to fix, which I do not have the parts for. Do not give me a reason why I should not go to bed right now."

"What documents?" Kakuzu asked.

"Why do you have a bicycle?" Yahiko wondered. Nagato seconded that, and asked what he had thought was going to happen.

Sasori's voice stayed flat and monotone. Deidara knew that tone well enough to realize Sasori actually was pretty tired. "Here you go. It was there outside the shop with no marks around to indicate anyone had left it, and I was in too much of a hurry to take the time to investigate. It would also be wrong for me not to fix a broken machine. I did not have any coherent thoughts of anything happening, my instincts just told me that something would and took over."

Kakuzu chuckled. It sounded unpleasant and toying, like a cat who has found a new mouse to chase. "I can think of several things to do with this…"

Sasori closed his eyes. "Knock yourself out. The other thing I stole, which he doesn't know about, was a price list. You'd probably enjoy seeing what the price of wire is now."

Kakuzu looked at the redhead in a new way. He may have participated in the taking of the pictures, but even so… "You have brains in your head, I see. What is this boss of yours going to do?"

Sasori opened his eyes. His voice now was questioning. "Probably yell at me all day like he does to the front desk lady. Why do you want to know?"

Kakuzu nodded with a firm look. "I'll keep a look out for something else."

Sasori's eyes widened. "Um...thanks…"

Deidara also nodded in support. "Yeah! Sounds like a real bastard, hm. Anything I can do to teach him a lesson?"

"No."

Konan poked her head around the corner of the near door, which led into the adjoining room that Hidan had fled through. "Is there a reason for this meeting?"

"Ooh, I love meetings," Hidan bounced into the room and sat down on his vacated chair rubbing his hands together. He picked up the remains of the banana and offered it to Konan. She shook her head no. He ripped opposite flaps of peel apart and gripped the whole remaining section of banana between his teeth. Tilting his head back like a crocodile, he horked it down whole. "What's the fuckin' news?"

Several of them opened their mouths simultaneously. Kakuzu won the race to determine the direction of the meeting and said, "The news is that you don't want to talk about last night." His direct look indicated the he _knew _this was Hidan's fault.

The words and the look bounced off Hidan's head like it was made of Teflon-coated rubber. "Awesome! We're looking into what happened with that shit? Fuck yeah! What the fuck happened with that shit?" He looked excitedly at Konan.

_He is such an anomaly…_ She stepped into the room, indicated everyone else gather around the far side, and proclaimed, "I have spent all day considering that question and asking Hidan what happened. As far as I can tell, what happened was this:

"Hidan heard the sound of the target crying and was confused because he did not feel sad. He approached the target to find out more, at which point she did something to him. The closest thing he can compare it to is a touch. Hidan reflexively defended himself by kicking her in the genitals and made his way back despite the immediate effects of her actions. Several other anomalous things happened, including the wounding of several bystanders and the altering of the physical properties of a nearby chair. It is unclear whether these effects were caused by the target or Hidan.

"These aftereffects caused some panic in the surrounding civilians. The target escaped in the chaos. Hidan was recovered and taken outside in around three minutes, at which point the immediate effects had ended and the secondary effect of pain had begun. He recovered from the pain sometime this morning, falling into ordinary sleep and awaking around 2:30 pm. There do not appear to be any lasting effects either physically or psychologically. Preexisting mental abnormalities make it impossible to determine if it had any mental effects.

"This is the current report of the incident. Any further questions?"

Hidan swooned. Everyone else felt something unnameable in them react to her words. Nagato thought he almost recognized the way she spoke. This report seemed to ring some kind of bell. He briefly flashed back to Yahiko's claim that his original was probably in charge of something. It could be determined for certain that this report had an effect on _his _mental processes.

Without noticing, his posture straightened. Nagato's voice was more confident than usual as he asked, "Yes. Could you please clarify what is meant by 'altering of physical properties' and 'mental abnormalities'?"

Yahiko also spoke. "We need to know more about his reason for approaching, as well. Why didn't he feel sad?"

They would have looked between themselves in surprise, but Konan responded too promptly for them to do so. "While walking with Hidan into town to get a cloak made, he revealed to me that the trees of this world have different characteristics than the trees of my world. Specifically, they do not grow as fast and the wood produced is much sturdier. Yet, during the incident, I observed someone break a wooden chair over another person's head. The blow was not hard enough to knock the victim unconscious, so if wood really is that much sturdier it shouldn't have been possible."

Hidan preened. "Aw yeah. I know useful shit."

Konan touched his shoulder to keep him quiet. "Hidan's thinking and senses are not impaired, but his memory is fragmented and his emotions are running wild in response to stimuli most people do not have such a reaction to. However, while interrogating him I discovered that these are perfectly normal for him. He has a long history of failing to remember or actively forgetting more than is usual, and the subjects of the missing parts of his memory overlap with the subjects of his extreme emotional reactions. I have already asked him to complete an exercise to help us find out more about this."

Hidan pouted and looked down. Konan gestured in Yahiko's general direction and looked at nothing in particular. "I also learned during the interrogation that his ability to feel other's emotions is not perfect. There is a certain class of being that he cannot detect the emotions of at all. If this woman was one of those beings, she must be relatively weak since she could not defend herself from his counter attack. 'Relatively' is a dangerous term, however. It is still likely that the target is stronger and poses a greater threat than an ordinary person, so I recommend that we prepare for retaliation seriously."

Sasori was the first to react, blinking rapidly and shaking his head to try to get rid of the feeling of disorientation. The feelings of familiarity and utter strangeness warred within him. Nagato and Yahiko looked between themselves now, sharing a feeling of fear from acting and speaking in ways they didn't understand and couldn't control. Deidara was unaffected, but wondered why Konan had the power to put his mind in military-mode. His good mood from the day improved. The incident at the bar had put him in military-mode as well, and a weight had lifted from his shoulders. It seemed some part of his mind had never come back to a civilian way of working, and the stress of that mismatch had been greater than he thought.

Hidan was also unaffected. All he knew was that Konan sounded very sexy right now, and he wanted her to talk like that more often. Preferably all the time. And also direct that tone of voice towards him. He whimpered to her, motioning toward her with both hands. She nodded. He hesitantly reached out and took her hand, then placed it on top of his head. She pressed down, and he purred.

Konan kept her hand there while she observed what she had done. What she had meant to do was nothing, just give a compiled report of what the hell had happened. Their reaction to this was...unexpected. _Nagato and Yahiko sounded like leaders just now. It sounded just as if I was listening to my Nagato and my Yahiko. _Shivers prickled along her spine. _How much of my Nagato and my Yahiko lies dormant within them? What kinds of clones are they?_

There was also Deidara to consider. He looked happy. _Why? I was able to have mutual understanding when we talked about inflicting suffering, and the first time I saw him he looked much more like a shinobi than everyone else did. Perhaps I have mutual understanding here, too. _What kind of mutual understanding, though? What was he responding to? What were any of them responding to? Konan looked around, looked back, looked inside. What had she done that was different than what she had done before?

Hidan pushed back under her hand. "You sound sexy when you talk in that way. Mmmm, reports and orders and shit." He stuck his tongue out and looked like a happy dog. "Maybe I should date more military people."

Konan stared down at him. _So that's it. Reporting is unique to the duties of a shinobi. Perhaps acting distinctly like a shinobi reminds some part of them of what they are. _She reached over with her other hand and scratched behind Hidan's ear as a reward. He drew his hands up in front of his chest like curled paws and purred.

Kakuzu mumbled, "Or you could look into a certain subculture." Deidara burst out laughing.

Hidan repressed his purring just long enough to say, "I don't think there are any *_purrrrrrr* _of *_purrrrrrrr* _around here. I hate leather."

Nagato joked, "Besides, Kakuzu, you don't want to give him a reason to leave, do you? I like keeping him around. Don't let him know there are alternatives!"

Sasori groaned. "What does preparing for retaliation mean? Do we just keep our eyes out, or practice fighting skills, or what?"

Konan nodded. "Both of those are good ideas. Since Nagato explained the schedule that people of this world follow to me this morning, I will concede that practicing is unfeasible until the weekend. At a minimum, keep your senses open."

Yahiko asked, "What can whatever she was do? She _was _hurt pretty badly by being kicked, but she also touched Hidan and changed her face. What should we be looking for?"

Sasori turned like a guided missile. "Changed her face?"

Yahiko nodded. "Yeah. Did nobody else see it? Her face bones moved around and seemed like they were changing shape; it was really creepy. She turned into a man! What should we do about that?"

Hidan opened his eyes and went still. He smiled. "Hehe. Hehehehe. Hahahaha. Ahahahaha!" When poked back to reality and asked to explain, he looked to Konan and asked her, "Remember that research project?" He was grinning too widely after asking that to say anything more.

Konan narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes, we should get started on that, shouldn't we?" Before she dragged Hidan away for further interrogation, she turned back to the rest of the group. "I'll explain what that means tomorrow morning. Yahiko, describe her male face as much as you can." Then she tightened her grip on Hidan's head and pulled him up by the hair. He protested, so she switched to his neck to drag him away to the basement.

Sasori's stomach picked this moment to growl. Itachi handed him a banana. Yahiko banged his head against the wall and lamented his inability to describe it properly after he tried and failed to adequately carry out his orders. Nagato reassured him it was alright. "Now we know to also keep an eye out for a man who tries to attack us and be wary of him too. That's okay." Nobody noticed Kakuzu off in a corner, thinking to himself.

Eventually he got fed up with everyone else's noise making and left, barely noticed. Sasori went off with Deidara to enjoy the latter's grocery bags. Nagato and Yahiko noticed the absence of a protective sound bubble and left, seeking out privacy for whatever they were talking about. Only Itachi remained, focused so intently on what he had heard that it qualified as meditating. He wasn't even disturbed by Hidan racing back in and asking, in a frenzy of excitement, if Itachi knew where a computer was. He was directed to Sasori, who flatly refused to loan away his laptop, which he didn't even have in the base anyway. The poor kitty was forced out into the streets, where he raced Konan to the library for their research.

Konan came back much too shortly later, shuddering with repressed activity. Hidan had wanted to stay at the library in a frenzy of research, but she had reasoned that he should get proper sleep and finish recovering from the hangover that wasn't. The unspoken _There isn't enough space in the library for the both of us _hung between them. Hidan had looked at her closely with his brow furrowed as he tried to repress the feelings he was picking up from her. He'd frowned a little. _Jealous, are we? _The night was ablaze with stars inside and out. She disappeared back to the library before Itachi had had time to ask what they were researching. Hidan was left alone to try and explain.

He opened his mouth in excitement, only to be interrupted by his own vocal cords releasing a joyous squeal. "Sammy! I'd know that toothball anywhere!" Then the door opened, and Hidan dropped to the floor immediately for cuddles, and Itachi wondered how he was going to explain everything to Kisame, and the rest was snuggly.

.

**Yahiko**

Yahiko lay awake in his bed that night, thinking. He couldn't pinpoint any one thing to think about, or say exactly _what_ he was thinking about whatever it was. Some questions had been resolved today. He now knew for certain that Hidan had not initiated whatever happened, which was a relief. His new friend was also safe and sound. After a while of listening to his thoughts running in circles, Yahiko decided not to fear whatever had happened when he and Nagato heard Konan speaking like that. His response to her had sounded commanding, authoritative, competent. That couldn't be bad, could it?

After that, he listened to his mind cycle some more. Yahiko decided not to worry about how he needed to get to sleep and instead try to bring that feeling back. Command. Authority. Competency. He imagined himself as a hero and, as a proper hero would do, set up a separate cycle in his mind to observe and keep track of the ways his thoughts were spinning. His job. His boss. The woman-man thing. The blood. Hidan crying. Konan on the rooftop. Monsters. _The target is stronger and poses a greater threat than an ordinary person. _Hidan purring. _Some mental training to better withstand the stresses of shinobi life might be useful. _The sound of the woman-man thing crying out. The corner of the rooftop. A cliff. Monsters?

Yahiko's nerves tingled. His heart thumped in his chest. He squeezed the sheets, desperate all of a sudden for something that was emerging. Eyes open. Itachi. So quiet, always thinking. What about? The paper blizzard. Butterflies. Water misting and curling in the air. Nagato was so fun to play with, wasn't he? The lake. Fish. Samehada. Kisame. The forest. Monsters. Werewolves. Half-wolves. Big beasts. Sharp teeth. _Maybe the next time we meet that large dog, you could try to calm it. _A chair breaking. Monsters. Claws. Hidan.

His grip on the sheets relaxed. The feeling like there was something was fading. What was it? Where was it? Yahiko didn't know. He tried to return to the previous track he'd been on. The woman-man thing. The bar. The blood. Where had he started? His job. The feeling faded faster. It was gone.

Yahiko sighed. _I really was almost about to do something. _He felt tears come up to his eyes. With his shirt sleeve, he wiped them away. _No. I shouldn't give up. That's not what heroes do. _Did he want to be a hero? On the one hand, that was what every child wanted to be. On the other hand, Yahiko reasoned, what more could one aspire to? Maybe children just had more hope than grown people did. Children. Hope. Hidan.

His eyes flew open wide. His breath caught in his chest, and Yahiko held utterly still. He even managed to stop himself from thinking, knowing that if he thought the feeling would leave again. His hands twitched. It was fragile. It could disappear, would disappear in a moment like a bubble bursting. The moment would end, and it would hurt. His hands twitched. Yahiko carefully permitted exactly one thought to pass through his mind. He had to allow this one to pass in order to be able to reach out, feel around for something to write on. Nothing. One more thought passed through. His skin. It would hold until morning. Yahiko moved slowly, as little as he could, trying not to scare the moment away. It was already at the limits. In just one more instant…

He reached up, bit with his left canine sharply into his left thumb. The cold, pure sharpness preserved the moment for a little longer. Quickly, before it wore off and he thought again, Yahiko's hand moved automatically against the skin of his opposite hand. The moment burst, and the feeling of understanding disappeared. The first thought to come flooding through was a feeling of disappointment. Then, an urge to preserve it. He got up and walked quickly to the door, swung it open. The lobby. He found a pen there, and some scrap of something that held ink. He ran back to his door, eased it shut quietly. Underneath the lamp on the stand at his bedside he copied down the message on his hand as thoroughly as possible. The pressure of holding the pen reopened the wound and his thumb bled again. He tilted the pen at more of an angle so the message would be farther from his blood. It could not be destroyed or covered.

This didn't help very much, since his blood was dribbling down the pen in any case. But it dribbled slower this way, so he was able to finish transcribing the letters without dirtying the message. It was good. He took the pen away as the first drop dripped from its point to the carpet. Only then did Yahiko blink and look down.

His heartbeat raced for a second or two with fear, and he took a step backward. _My hand is covered in blood! _He raced to the bathroom and came to his senses only after the cold water from the faucet splashed over his fingers. He watched the red swirl down the drain. Now that the pen's movement was not smearing it everywhere, he could clearly see that the actual wound was very small and inconsequential. It was much less attention drawing than the red smears on the back of his other hand where it gripped the sink. His eyes moved to the right of their own accord, and he stared at what he saw there.

_Stay, _it said. Stay? Where? Yahiko sighed and hung his head, thinking about what he had just been thinking about. Monsters. Some things Konan had said to him. Hidan.

_Wait… _Monsters. Konan. Hidan. _Heroes fight monsters. _What did it mean? Yahiko looked at his hand again. _Monsters, Konan, Hidan, heroes, stay. What do they mean? _

All his efforts collapsed again. The more he tried to build a mental bridge out the further reaches of his consciousness where all this had come from, the faster it collapsed. It was a bridge made of toothpicks. It was like something he had to lure out of hiding. But how could he lure himself out of hiding? It was as impossible as a snake eating itself by its own tail. Yahiko looked at himself in the mirror, at the way his wide eyes shone in the light and his hair fell clumsily over his ears. Could he ever be a hero?

Before turning the water off, he hesitated. He looked down at the message written on his hand again. It had not changed. _Stay. _He put his right hand under the water and washed that off too before turning it off. Yahiko looked back at himself in the mirror as he shut the lights off in the bathroom.

Next to his bed, the warm orange light was still on. He sat on the edge of his bed and took the scrap, looked down at the message he had transcribed. His eyes widened. It was not the same message! Somehow, in the frenzy of urgency, as he'd gotten lost in his urge to preserve this important thing, something else in his mind must have come out of hiding. He didn't remember making any additions to the message. _If I didn't add anything, then this is really the same message! I just got more of it down! _He stared at the completed message. Then, in case he figured something else out later, he took the pen and wrote beneath it the five words he had connected.

_Monsters. Konan. Hidan. Heroes. Stay. _He supposed the last no longer mattered, but wrote it down anyway. Above these five, in big scrawling letters, a command spoke itself at him. _Stay here. _

_._

**A/N: ~ To-day is a good day, to-day is a good day. ~**

**Well, crud. I'd forgotten Yahiko's supposed to be staying. That's going to be some restructuring.**


	19. Invasion

**A/N: Kakuzu's pretty awesome. I should have more scenes with him. I'm really getting to like this club of sensible people that he, Sasori and Kisame are forming. I had no idea that was going to happen whatsoever.  
**

**Kakuzu**

His back creaked as he stretched to the right, then to the left in bed. Kakuzu looked down at himself. He had one hell of a lot to be grateful for. A little back creaking after sleeping in a strange bed was _nothing _compared to what he should be dealing with at his age. He lifted the blanket, made sure that nobody was about to come barging in, then slowly pulled his shirt up. Even more than his back, his chest was covered with densely packed cris-crossing lines of stitches. By all rights the places where they met should have been very noticeably scarred or possibly infected, since there were no stitches for a couple of centimeters around each intersection. At this density they would've overlapped.

There were still no sounds of anyone coming to bother him. The benefits of advanced age were becoming clearer to Kakuzu every day he was here. _Even retreating sleep cycles should have use. It's a waste of energy if they don't. _He liked to believe evolution was economical and did not waste anything. Since the morning only just provided enough light to see the dark patch where all these stitches met, he switched on the light next to his bed for clearer viewing. Each stitch became clearly visible, little lines of shadow emerging from and disappearing beneath his flesh.

_Hm. Why do I have these things? _He liked to believe they served some useful purpose. If his original had just gotten poorly closed stitches for no reason, Kakuzu could think of several words he would have to say about that. He probed an intersection with one finger. Observing that it did not hurt, he pressed deeper. It still did not hurt. He pressed even more forcefully, and stopped. Curiosity was tempered by concern. Kakuzu stared down at the intersection he had just been pressing. It was just next to his ribcage and slightly beneath the sternum, a place where properly applied force can kill. Yet he felt nothing.

Kakuzu sat up straight, and took off his shirt entirely. He considered that this viewpoint might be inadequate, so he went into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. From this position, something seemed as if it should be obvious to him. Something in the pattern of his stitches…

He turned slightly, observing the pattern on his back. The stitches here were just as plentiful as on his chest, but spread over a larger area. They almost looked like diamonds. He narrowed his eyes and turned to look again at the stitches on his chest. These ones were more chaotic, spread at stranger angles, but nonetheless he could imagine a diamond-like shape in them. Not complete diamonds, of course. They just had angles that seemed to point in particular directions the way diamonds did.

Kakuzu wondered about the purpose of these. He was not in the habit of ignoring patterns at the most innocuous of times, and this was not innocuous at all. What did that shape do? He narrowed his eyes into the mirror. _Still seems like I'm overlooking something…_

He traced the pattern of his stitches. The ones coming off his mouth reminded him uncomfortably of the Joker. _Ugh. Ugly-looking clown. _He had more tracing along beneath his collarbones and wrapping around his shoulders in circles. Similar circles wrapped around his arms in two places. It occurred to him that he looked like a doll assembled in segments that had been stitched together. _What the hell good is it supposed to do me to look like a ragdoll? _

From there a number of stitches spread like patchwork across his chest, intersecting at various angles across his upper abdomen. The lowest was only an inch, inch and a half above his stomach and to the side. Kakuzu wondered how he had never wondered about that placement before. The abdomen and chest was where all the life-sustaining organs were. Injuries deep enough to requires stitches this large should have landed him in the hospital. He could easily imagine major damage to his liver, maybe. That was above the stomach, right? Though it was only muscle, injury to the diaphragm which allowed him to draw breath into his lungs should have resulted in the same. Thankfully his lungs themselves were out of harm's way, protected by the -

_That's it! _Kakuzu's hand flew to his chest, squeezed. He pressed into the places where he could feel bone, traced them across his chest. His hands ran across the very edges of his stitches where they reached over the edge of his ribs over his lungs. Aside from those, there was nothing. Kakuzu realized what had seemed like it should be obvious to him before. He had no stitches whatsoever where his organs were protected, not even scars. Nor did he have any stitches above the organs, such as intestines and stomach, which were not terribly vital and could survive injury or even replacement. His stitches opened onto the part of his chest where vital organs went, nothing more.

His eyes were now wide as he stared in the mirror. _Stitches...opened? _His hand pressed into the intersections again. Those weren't just diamond-like angles. Those were _flaps. _

_Woah, whoa. Wait just one fucking second. _His eyes narrowed again. There was no reason to go jumping to conclusions. If he had flaps sewn into his chest for access to major organs, he'd know, right? Their false memories were of a perfectly normal life, exploration of their bodies included. He would have known he had those structures, just as Kisame knew he was sharklike or that wolf guy knew he was half-wolf. As far as he knew, the only thing funny about their false memories was that they hadn't cared before. _Just like I didn't really notice how my stitches were in any way strange. _No reason to assume this failure to recognize strangeness included failure to recognize parts of his own frickin' body.

Although… Not everyone in the base had known about all the parts of their bodies before Konan arrived. Itachi hadn't known about his eyes, for example. Kakuzu dismissed that. _Of course he didn't know what his eyes could do. That was an ability activated by chakra. _Unless Kakuzu's stitches were activated by chakra, he didn't see what that had to do with anything.

It had been long enough. He left the bathroom, noticing with some annoyance that the morning light was now bright enough to indicate a decent time of day for people to be waking up. He put his shirt back on and proceeded with his morning routine as if nothing had happened at all. Upon completing this routine, he went out.

Sure enough, there was the sound of people doing things. Kakuzu ignored this and went into the kitchen. It was still bare. He sighed. Now that Hidan was recovered and Kakuzu had discovered how uncomfortable he was doing his normal activities, there was no excuse to avoid purchasing a refrigerator. Secretly, he recognized the necessity. Upon returning to the base the previous day, he had discovered Hidan awake and Konan in need of something to distract herself from Hidan's lack of need for assistance. Upon seeing the look in his eyes, Konan had recognized the need for mutual distraction and proceeded to take him out back and test his endurance severely. Kakuzu had been _very _interested to discover how fast and agile he was, traits not usually associated with people half his age, and had managed to dodge or punch apart her paper weapons. Even though he still didn't know how to fight as his original had, he was unable to maintain any disbelief in Konan's claims after that. It was impossible not to accept that he had little to no place in this world.

Which is how Kakuzu solved his money concerns in a single thought. _In that case, why don't I cannibalize my own living space? _He had a fridge of his own already. He'd already discovered that a normal apartment in the middle of a normal town was capable of driving him insane just by existing around him. Why not? He snorted and wondered where that camera had gone. Then again, Hidan took anything in stride. He probably wouldn't have any entertaining reaction to being told the reason he had dug up his treasure was no more. That was _infuriating. _

Kakuzu drummed his fingers on the countertops for several more seconds, then went looking for Kisame. He found the shark-man arguing with his land-shark about something, who cared what, and settled against the wall to wait until they were done. Of course as soon as he settled, Samehada noticed him and slithered up, growling in cheerful tones. Well, it seemed he wouldn't have to wait after all. Kakuzu, ignoring whatever Kisame was saying, bent down to examine Samehada. It was obvious the shark could move as well as an ordinary person, at least. The mouth was obviously dangerous. Aside from that, what else?

Kisame realized he was being ignored and approached. It seemed he had gotten a completely wrong idea about why Kakuzu was here. "Are you looking for something?" he inquired in a faux-casual voice.

Kakuzu could be plenty diplomatic if he felt like it. He patted Samehada on the head as he answered, "What will your shark be doing today?"

Kisame looked down. Aside from greed, he had not encountered a single other thing that was still normal. "I thought I'd take him to the lake, or maybe leave him with Hidan since they seem to get along so well."

Kakuzu patted Samehada's scales again. "Good."

Kisame stared. "Excuse me for being paranoid, but I need _a lot_ more information." His voice sounded suspicious, almost accusatory. Anyone else would have minded being addressed in this way.

Kakuzu did not. His tone was light as he answered. "Only Konan, Hidan and I have no reason to leave during working hours. There is no way for that arrangement to work out easily: If I leave those two to fawn over each other, I'll be bored. I have no desire to play with Hidan. And if I have Konan teach me some more about fighting, Hidan will get bored and start annoying one or both of us. But if Samehada is here as well…" His eyes narrowed in triumph. "All is well."

Kisame relaxed and chuckled. "Glad to be of service," he said. "As long as nothing happens to Same, got it?"

Kakuzu looked at the shark in question. "That depends. Do you want something to happen to you?" he asked Samehada. Samehada was still for a second, then thrashed his body back and forth vigorously. He thrust his pectoral fins forward in two sharp bursts as if punching, then opened his mouth and growled a challenge. Finally, he settled down in a ready position with a low growl.

Kakuzu chuckled with genuine good humor. "Heh. Yes, it is definitely a very good thing to have your shark around." Samehada's tongue lolled out of his mouth in joy. Kakuzu reached out and patted near his mouth with a genuine, soft touch. It seemed Kisame really did have good taste. He wondered how it would be taken if he invited the shark man to train together or something similar.

"...e Hell?!" came a shout from down the hall.

**Deidara**

He jumped back slightly with a shocked expression. Sasori did not yell like that. He just didn't. But just now…

Sasori stabbed his phone screen with a finger, all traces of sleep gone. The second's delay in opening up whatever notification he had received seemed to annoy him very much. When it finally went through, Sasori put the phone to his ear. Deidara untensed and listened. Sasori issued several short, clipped commands. He seemed to be going through a phone tree. When he finally reached someone human his voice relaxed.

"Hello. I am asking about the notification I just saw on my phone regarding a break in at my house," he calmly stated. Deidara's eyes went wide. Kakuzu snorted softly. Kisame sighed.

There was a response they couldn't hear. Sasori gave several identifying details. There was a long delay, then another faint response. Sasori repeated some of those details. Deidara found his throat going dry, and gulped to moisten it. This eerie calmness was somehow terrifying since he knew how Sasori really felt. _Whoever did this might really be in for it, hm._

There was a slight pause, then a short question. Sasori's other hand tightened. "Oh, no. I want to hear all about it, preferably now. When did it happen? Did the officers find anything? Is anything missing? And do I need to tell someone where I was when it happened?"

There was a long wait of a good two minutes while the lady on the other end answered. Sasori's eyes widened. Eventually, he muttered some standard disengagement statements and ended the call, placing his phone beside him next to his other hand, which was now gripping the sheets so hard the knuckles were white. For some strange reason, nobody else felt like moving.

Sasori looked up at Deidara with a _wrong _look in his eyes. _What the hell is that look, hm? What is it? And why does it feel so bad, huh? _Deidara thought it might have something to do with his not ever having seen anything like this look before, but that couldn't be the whole story. "Uh…" His voice shook. Dei coughed, and spoke more steadily. "So, what happened, yeah?"

Sasori's hand loosened just barely enough for blood to flow through his fingers again. "When it happened was shortly after midnight, about 12:30 in the morning. The officers found a broken window and some things knocked over. They think something in my bedroom could be missing, since that's where the most chaos is, and they want me to come in and check. I'll provide some kind of statement then."

Dei nodded in sympathy. "Shit. I hope you can get it back or replace anything that was taken, hm."

Sasori nodded back. "After I test out some of my ninja abilities against whoever was responsible, perhaps." He groaned. "I had to sneak back to work late at night just to do my job because I have reason to think my boss will make my life hell, then I stayed up even later purchasing bike parts for a children's bicycle I'm responsible for and no, I don't why I am, and now this. Whoever's responsible for that bike had better be grateful."

Dei wondered if it was the right question to ask. "Um...could you maybe just take the day off today, hm?"

Sasori closed his eyes. "I might go insane if I do, since I like my job and it is enjoyable. I only have one bicycle to work on, which isn't nearly enough for a full day. And if I take _today _off, that bastard will think it was because of him and I can't let him be that satisfied."

Kisame walked in, stopping a few feet from Sasori. He didn't know exactly how to do this. It was kind of awkward. "Yeah...My supervisors ruin the favorite part of my day, too. My condolences."

Sasori looked up at him with a blank expression. Kisame had no idea whether or not his attempt was appreciated, and began to fidget. Then Sasori looked down and gestured for Samehada to come over. He patted the shark for several seconds, then stood up. "I have things to do. Clear out, at least three of you."

Everyone but Deidara did so. Dei looked at him and ventured, "Are you really okay?"

"No." Sasori did not pause or make any changes to what he was doing.

_What the hell else do I say, hm? _Dei thought about what he wanted a long time ago just after something horrible had happened. He had always curled up in his tent or went out to look into the night alone. He decided to say nothing and left, leaving Sasori to move on with his day.

**Nagato**

Nagato closed his eyes, squeezing them shut and visualizing the Big Bang in an attempt to drive certain exceedingly pleasant - but false! - visions from his mind. _No. Bad. Don't think of that now. Save it for later. It's not even happening. Don't embarrass me! _

The cause for these visions was sitting on his bed not two steps away. Yahiko sat back in a relaxed and very good-looking posture, with a slight blush on his face. Nagato opened his eyes as if he had only had to concentrate on what Yahiko was saying. "You...are staying here with Konan?"

Yahiko looked down and fiddled with his hair. "Yeah. I don't even know what I'm saying or how I thought of this, but I think I should. I know it's strange, but I've always thought I should follow my instincts, so…"

Nagato took a deep breath, and let it out. "So I don't need to pick you up today." _Damn. I like driving with him, just the two of us… What's wrong with me?_

Yahiko nodded. "Yeah. Hidan's around, so it should be okay. I think I'll just spend time with the two of them on whatever, see what happens."

Nagato suggested, "Keep everything focused on ninja activities. She seems most comfortable with those, and it could help you to understand her better."

Yahiko snorted. "Of course! After what she said about my original… What else would I do? I mean, that's what I was already planning. Hidan and I could ask her to tell us more about what chakra is, or something."

"Yeah. Good idea." Nagato relaxed his shoulders, rolling them back and forth. "If anything really important happens, I guess you could call."

"Definitely! Maybe it would be a good idea if she wasn't surprised. Could you tell her and Hidan?"

"Sure," Nagato replied. "If I can, I might ask her more about my original while I'm at it. If it is a problem with your original, and she doesn't have as much of a problem with me, than my original must have been different than yours. I'll try to find out more about what that difference was."

Yahiko looked up and gave him a thumbs up that morphed into a fist. "Thanks! You're pretty amazing at this. Thank you."

Nagato returned the fist bump, his fingers shivering afterwards with the memory of contact. "It's my job as a good friend. Well, see you later." He left, walking as casually as he could until Yahiko was out of sight before racing away from his own room. After a few doorways had passed, he stopped and pressed a hand into his forehead, grinding the heel of his palm just above his eyes. _My job as a good friend? Oh god. I am failing so badly at that job. _He took several deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

_Who should I see? Konan seems to know things, since she stepped in while we were on that bench and told me 'You're welcome'. Hidan definitely knows things, since he can tell what everyone nearby is feeling. Well...she might be busy. I'd better go talk to Hidan first. _Nagato relaxed his shoulders again and went to look for Hidan. He did have to, but more importantly, there was a distinctly non-zero possibility that Hidan could have some answers.

After wandering through the kitchen, he found Hidan in place #2 on his list of Likely Places For Hidan To Be: The Sunroom. It had become pretty obvious why Hidan had named it that when Nagato walked by in the course of things one weekend afternoon. That room _blazed _with sunshine from its large windows. It had also become clear that it was Hidan's favorite room in the entire building. He'd been scratching the carpet and dragging the soft chair out of the corner to lie in, as Nagato recalled. Did cats scratch carpets? He knew they scratched furniture. Perhaps carpets were easier to scratch since Hidan didn't have the claws of a real cat.

That train of thought slammed to a screeching halt as Nagato came to a stop in the doorway to the sunroom. _What the - _Hidan was bent in a crouch on top of the chair, scratching at it. Sure enough, his fingernails were unable to scratch it in a satisfying way, so he jumped down to the carpet and began to tear at it. No progress was made there, so he proceeded to race around the room on all fours, once diving from high on the opposite wall to impact on the chair with enough force to knock it over, somehow. That was when he noticed Nagato standing there with his mouth open.

"Hey! Moon guy! Can you believe this shit?" Hidan jabbered. "In just a few short hours, this room will be _filled _with **glorious **sunshine! Or are the hours long? Who cares! Sunny! And- and…" His hands made frustrated clawing motions back and forth in the air. "Fuck! This room is boring! It sucks! This is the day to be doing things, learning things, doing things, and running, and all kinds of other shit that's not napping. Fuck napping! Only losers do that shit!" His eyes shone in a way that sent shivers up Nagato's back.

"Um...Hidan...are you okay?" he ventured carefully. Carefully was evidently the wrong way to venture, because Hidan ignored the question completely. Instead of answering, he wrapped Nagato in a giant hug and squeezed him tight. Nagato considered proceeding from wary to frightened. Something was not correct.

Hidan was not in the mood for a gentle hug. Nagato tried to breathe, and discovered he couldn't. That made the decision for him. He tried to thrash, and also couldn't. His hands tightened. His heart felt like it was being squeezed directly. Spots appeared in his vision. A feeling of warmth surged and coiled in a ball in the core of his stomach. Nagato's hands flew open, the fingers springing out in a forward thrust instead of the open, receptive splaying they had done before. _Push! _

Hidan's fingers were tightly gripping Nagato, so they both went flying, but Hidan flew further than Nagato. He lost his grip halfway through and tumbled across the floor, smacking into the fallen chair. Nagato propped himself up and gasped for breath. He shivered as he did so.

_Oh my god. What was that? _He readjusted his arms after one of them shivered out of position. He felt cold all of a sudden. _Did Hidan really just do that? He almost… It felt like I could've…_ Nagato swallowed, then resumed gasping as he pushed himself up and stumbled backward into a crouch. His eyes stayed on Hidan the whole time. Hidan had by now bounced to his feet and was standing up. Nagato did likewise.

"Hidan, you are not okay." It wasn't any relation to a question.

Hidan scratched his head. "Sorry! I was just happy to see ya. Have you even seen…" And he continued to jabber on, gesturing in the vague direction of the training rooms, then the kitchen, then down to the basement, and finally in no direction at all as Hidan outlined a series of increasingly strange plans. "So we're going to get those bags set up, and punch the shit out of them, and get more bags, and draw on them, and make targets, and we'll have so many fucking targets the walls'll be plastered, the kitchen needs a new sink, but not just a regular one the best fucking sink you've even thought of, and it could get some fancy things, and have you heard Konan's ideas about the basement?! I haven't heard them either, but they're fucking amazing! We need to invent a whole new kind of metal jutsu to do it! Now! It'll be so efficient! Do you wanna -"

Nagato's back hit the wall. Only then did Hidan notice he'd been backing away the whole time. "Hey, what's wrong? You look scared or something. I don't know, I can't really tell. Aw damn, do you have work or some shit?! Fuck that shit! Stay home!" He raced over and had an arm around Nagato before the redhead could even react. "We got better shit to do!"

Nagato decided that it was good to be harsh sometimes, and punched Hidan in the throat. Hidan stumbled away, holding his throat and trying to force air out through it. He still grinned and appeared to be trying to laugh. He sat down and gave Nagato a thumbs up.

Nagato slapped away his hand. "Hidan. Stop. You are not acting normal. This isn't funny."

Hidan snarled. He managed to croak out, "Stop?! Why? We've got things happening! What the fuck's wrong with you, asshole!"

Nagato kept his eyes on Hidan but looked around his periphery frantically. What to do? _Oh no this was a terrible idea. _Wait! Yahiko had mentioned something about a vicious dog. _Hidan's definitely acting like one. Vicious dog...needs calming...help. That was what Yahiko was talking about. I need to get him somewhere safe. He's acting like he's in trouble. _Hidan took offense to the way he was being looked at and swiped at Nagato. Nagato thanked the reflexes that allowed him to duck in time and grabbed Hidan's arm, slinging it over his shoulders and grabbing the other arm to hold it still. Against Hidan's struggles, he hoisted both of them to their feet.

_Where? _Nagato wondered what the definition of safe was in this case. Hidan lashed out with a leg, tried to trip him. He really did not like being bound like this. Nagato kept his balance, gasping. _Somewhere calm. Give him calmness. Hope I have the strength to get there! _He also thought to hope that nobody would see this as he dragged Hidan out of the doorway.

Hidan broke away and looked like he was going to run off, but Nagato used his Pull power on him and maintained it, holding Hidan in a bond he could not escape from for the duration of a hallway. Hidan did not seem to realize this. The technique dropped, and Nagato reached forward to hold Hidan the hard way while he recovered, but Hidan was by now sitting quietly. He looked up at Nagato with tear-filled eyes. "What are you doing? I want to show you cool shit, and now you're kidnapping me or something?!" he sniffled. Before Nagato could say anything, Hidan started crying and slapped him away. "Dickface! I thought we were friends!"

Nagato wondered where he was. _Did Yahiko slip me hardcore drugs? _He didn't think so, but what the hell else could be happening? "Hidan, I don't know what's happening. You assaulted me -"

Hidan's head snapped up. "No I didn't! I had cool ideas! Things happening!" His eyes narrowed, and he slid closer to Nagato on the floor until they were eye to eye. He whispered in a stereotypical seductive whisper, "You want to see what I can do?"

Kakuzu stopped in the intersection of the two halls and looked absolutely dumbfounded, even more so than in the pictures. "What the fuck are you two doing?"

Hidan burst out laughing. "Oh, nothing, just taking advantage of the day. Do you want to hear what I've thought of?"

Nagato shook his head. "Don't. Bad idea. I'm scared."

Hidan stuck his tongue out. "Fine, be that way! I'm going to go see what Konan has. It's only been five minutes, but she's got to have some more cool shit by now!"

Nagato raised his hand. He was unsure for what, but Kakuzu got the message and tackled Hidan, pinning the younger man to the ground. Hidan stopped entirely, then, in a curious voice, asked, "What are you doing?"

Kakuzu got an arm around his neck and hauled him to his feet. "Holding you still."

Nagato got to his wobbly feet and looked around. His mind came back online soon enough and he pointed to the back of the building, where he had been taking Hidan. Kakuzu took up the task of dragging Hidan, who was much easier to drag now that his attention was taken up with a minuscule crack he thought he saw in a corner. He started wriggling again as they went out the back of the hotel, down the stoop, and into the woods.

Once they crossed the tree line he stopped again. Hidan let his legs go limp, leaving drag marks in the leaves. He didn't care very much as he put his hands to his head. "Ow."

Nagato looked over. "Hidan? Are you okay?"

Hidan looked at him. "Nagato? You feel worried. Is something wrong? Wait…" His face scrunched in concentration. "Wait, you were worried before. Sorry I wasn't paying much attention. I was too linked in with Konan to feel much."

Kakuzu turned his head slightly. "Konan?"

Nagato reached for his phone and sent a quick text to Yahiko asking if he'd already called in with an emergency like he'd been planning. The answer was yes. _Oh crap. _He swallowed the fear and put his phone away.

Hidan allowed himself to be dragged further, but he was aware and paying attention. "What was that?"

Nagato looked at him sideways. "Do you remember how you were just acting, Hidan?"

Hidan's brow furrowed. "Um… I was really excited about stuff. A lot of stuff. Oh fuck, I don't even remember. I remember feeling like my head was spinning. There were so many fucking things. _Ow. _Did I hurt myself?"

Nagato paused to consider. "...You did launch yourself headfirst into a large padded chair."

Hidan winced. "That explains why my head feels like I slammed into a bar, then. Fuck. Kakuzu?"

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"I feel kinda sick."

They were almost at the small stream anyway, so Kakuzu let go and let him stumble the last few feet on his own legs. Hidan stumbled as if drunk and fell down, cradling his head with one hand and propping himself on the other. Nagato crouched by his side and patted his hair. Hidan leaned into the touch gladly. Nagato swallowed and took Hidan's head into his lap.

Hidan's breathing was shallow. Nagato watched his unusually pale face and the way his chest rose and fell shakingly, and felt a swell of determination and conviction that he'd done the right thing. He rubbed the back of Hidan's neck in what he hoped was a comforting way. Hidan whimpered.

Kakuzu sat down to Nagato's left and looked at them. "That's not ordinary sickness," he declared. "Hidan doesn't get sick in the first place, and if he did it wouldn't look like that. Looks more like hard drugs to me."

Hidan opened his eyes, fluttering them for a few seconds until they were fully open. "I'm _fine. _No drugs. Just tired, that's all." His stomach growled. "And that. Though I'd really like some of that water first." His pupils widened at the sight of the stream.

Nagato lifted his head and dipped Hidan into the water headfirst for a few seconds, then took him out. Hidan looked longingly at the water, then remembered that it wasn't good to overdrink or overeat. He should give his body time to recognize that he had had a drink first. He flopped back into Nagato's lap gladly, wondering if Nagato would need to change pants from his wet hair.

He was correct, but the redhead would have to be crazed to be concerned about that at this time. He smoothed Hidan's hair back from his forehead, noticing how smoothly it drifted back from his eyes in the process. _Not the time. _It felt good to smooth his hair back and to watch, so Nagato continued to do so as he asked, "Better?"

"Mm-hmm."

Kakuzu looked between them and reconsidered his earlier ideas. After a few seconds, he reached over and felt Hidan's forehead, carefully not getting in Nagato's way. "Temperature's pretty normal, for just being dunked. He's acting more reasonable. Seems it's over, for now."

Hidan opened his eyes. "Yeah. I'm just a little hungry and tired from being up since one in the morning, and that drink was good. I'm fine." He nonetheless continued to lie in Nagato's lap.

Nagato wondered why he was doing that. _Does he like it? _That sent shivers up his spine. He remembered that Kakuzu had a working brain and eyes, and slowly pushed Hidan off his lap. Hidan, true enough, was in good enough condition to sit up on his own. He still propped himself up one one hand as he yawned. Nagato turned now to Kakuzu. "Thank you."

Kakuzu nodded. "I was going to ask you and the Disney prince if either of you felt like comforting Sasori, since he had a break in last night."

Nagato gasped. "A break in? What is going on today?"

Kakuzu snorted. "Don't ask me. Someone broke in to his normal place at about half past midnight last night. It's too early to know if they took anything, but some things are scattered all over so it's possible. I'm starting to understand how he expresses things better. Seems pretty upset about it."

Hidan sagged. "Oh, _shit,_" he whimpered. He soon had two pairs of eyes on him, but was not in the mood to say anything more.

Nagato cleared his throat. "I, for one, wholeheartedly agree with Hidan." In answer to Kakuzu's unasked question, he clarified, "Yahiko thought of something last night that inspired him to stay here for today. If Konan's in a state that could inspire _this…_"

Hidan whimpered again. "I'm going to _my _regular place, which is not here, to rest and recover. I need some time to prepare to deal with that shit."

Kakuzu tightened his fists. "_Of all the fucking days…_ Lucky me, I also am going to be here today. And it looks like every plan I had is out the _fucking _window."

Nagato felt shrinking, helpless. He wasn't in a good position to call out to deal with this. But who ever was? Did thinking that make him a bad person? If there was trouble, he'd better stay too, for Yahiko's sake at least. Right?

Hidan knocked on his ribs. "Go. Get your buddy some normalcy and funny stories to relax with for tonight, for fuck's sake. He can deal with anything as long as you're not around."

Nagato looked up and stared. _As long as I'm not around? Does he mean I'm holding Yahiko back? _Nagato found himself considering ways he could be doing this, then shook himself. _No, he wouldn't say that. Yahiko just worries more about other people than himself, that's all. He would be extra worried for me. That's all he could have meant. _

Kakuzu growled, "Get out of here and warn him before he runs into her, for fuck's sake."

Nagato was on his feet and racing back to the base in a flash. Of course! Not to mention, he still had Konan to talk to. Nagato's steps slowed as he approached the back door, considering. Hidan was the worst off because he felt what other people felt. Nobody else could be so badly affected by anything that was going on with another person. His breath rushed out in a sigh of relief.

The building was quiet. It had been quiet before, but he could almost feel the lack of people in it now. _Maybe ninjas can sense things like that? _He vowed to try and practice what he could during his day. Work or no, there was no way he could leave Hidan and Yahiko to fend for themselves. He walked quietly towards his and Yahiko's rooms.

But before Nagato could get there, he registered a flash of movement. Then Konan was on him, pulling him into the nearest room to see what she had on the laptop tucked under her arm.

**A/N: Hidan doesn't get a lot of scenes with his own thoughts. I should remedy that. Maybe in a few chapters when he comes back to the story, I will. But yeah, there's a reason or several why Nagato's on the list of major characters in this story. **

**Dracula was right. I read Bram Stoker's Dracula a while ago, and I remember a grand total of two things from it: the hero's wife plummeting to her death, and Dracula saying, "To know is to love," as his explanation for why he wants to go to England and set up a vampire nest there. That line is the single most accurate line I have ever heard, especially as it relates to my own life. Whenever I learn more about a thing, I instantly like that thing a lot more. If I hear a language, I want to learn more of it on Duolingo. If I work with a character in my fanfiction, I start to like them a lot more. I didn't really think much of Sasori or Kisame before, but now that I'm writing them Sasori's one of my favorite characters, approaching _the _favorite, and Kisame's sounding more and more awesome every scene. Ditto for Kakuzu. These people are so cool!**


	20. Race Race Bam

**A/N: *Whew* Chapter length is at least 4000 words. This one is 4073. Not bad, Past Me. Not bad.  
**

**I have about as much idea where this is going as Konan does. Hope it all holds together somehow.**

**Happy Thanksgiving!**

**Konan**

The room she pulled Nagato into was a room of convenience, just a place to show him what she had learned. The rest of her notes were in her room, but she was a trained shinobi. _Of course I can remember all of it. Anything I wish. _Nagato needed to know the critically important things she had to say.

He prudently sat down on the bed and looked attentive before she could push him onto it. Konan's heart leaped. Excellent! She dove onto the bed next to him and, turning so that he could see the screen, opened the laptop. Her fingers skimmed over the keys, entering a wrong password. She deleted it and entered another wrong one.

"Maybe if you slowed down…"

"Stop distracting me." _Who the hell does he think he is, my father? It's hard enough remembering someone else's meaningless code. Get out of my hair!_

After the 5th try, she typed in the password correctly. The desktop came up, revealing a picture of a scorpion perched on top of a fence post. She growled, a short snarl of frustration at seeing that her work was not on the screen. Then she remembered the "cloud" that Hidan had mentioned, how she had put everything there for safekeeping. Where was that again? Maybe she should just show him everything from the start…

Nagato fidgeted. "Where did you get a laptop?"

Konan opened up Wikipedia, typed in the whole whirling storm of new words circling around in her head. "Hidan asked about one."

Nagato let her snarl again, then figure out that she couldn't open all the tabs at once and start searching at a more normal pace before he inquired again. "What answer did he get?"

Konan's fingers paused. If she went to the article for demon, could she open all the tabs? But she really really wanted to look for one of the things she had spent all this time looking for. Decisions, decisions. She made one after a few seconds and searched for the article on demons. She hadn't heard Nagato's second question at all.

This article _**sucked**_. It had no list of demons at all! She scrolled furiously past endless descriptions of religions she had no interest in. There, at the bottom, was a list of blue words related to this article. Her eyes bounced around. Yokai? Oooh. What did this world have to say about them? She opened that article and read the first paragraph. Nagato cleared his throat and asked what Hidan had found again.

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Sasori refused to loan it out." _Interesting…_ She made sure to diligently read through the entire article before opening all the tabs. She'd gone through five of them and opened 18 more in their place before Nagato was able to compose a response.

"Did...did you break into Sasori's house last night?" he asked.

Konan blinked. "Of course. The library closed at midnight."

"...This is not a good way to get us to like or listen to you," Nagato finally said. What else could he appeal to? For some reason, he didn't think arguing on the basis of morality would be effective right now.

"I have demons to read about." Actually, the article she was on now was discussing the eruption of Mt. St. Helen, but who cared about details? _Is Mt. St. Helen anywhere near here? I should have a complete list made of any local volcanoes. _

"In the middle of the night?" The logical link occurred to him just then. "You haven't slept all night, have you?"

"Sleep is for people who don't have trees to read about," she answered. Whoa. Who knew trees could be so interesting? She got bored and skipped to the next tab, which was on medieval blacksmithing, halfway through.

Nagato got the funny sense that he could not possibly get a coherent conversation out of her. "So, what did you bring me in here to look at?" he asked.

Konan stopped scrolling. She got a strange look on her face. "Demons. All kinds of demons." She sacrificed the article on trees to search for the article on demons instead. This time she tried to look for something specific. Yaoguai? _No. No. Demons. Focus. _She opened that in a separate tab for later. _Focus! _The words on the page began to spin even as she tried to focus on them. A low growl started in her throat. _**Burn everything! **_

Nagato reached over and clicked on "list of fictional demons" for her. The lowercase "f" in the title flipped her off. She scrolled down viciously. _! _The list was so long! Her eyes raced down the list, eager to open everything. _No. Wrong. Nothing's familiar. _This was the wrong list! She grew furious with Nagato for taking her here. _No. No. Reason. Focus. Demons aren't supposed to be real. Makes sense to look in fiction. How would he know it's wrong? Look for more demons. _List of theological demons then? _**Rrrrrrrrrrrr….**_ More names of specific demons greeted her. Wrong. Wrong. Different list. Konan valiantly resisted the temptation to relax by looking at the article on blue whales.

_So, so, so, what list has them? _A ha! Classification of demons! Konan looked through the entire list of contents. Nothing looked like what she was looking for. This laptop and its Internet were the most useless features she had ever seen. Why invent a device that offers limitless knowledge and make it too distracting to actually learn from at the same time? Konan breathed in and out. _Calm. Calm. _It was not the device's fault that it was so useless. It was the fault of the people who made it. She vowed to kill anyone who she discovered to have some part in the production of these machines from now on.

Still she scrolled down. _Hey! _shouted a voice. Who was that, sounding so impatient? Oh… Konan was thrilled to see some delightful blue words: _incubi _and _succubi_. She closed every other tab and opened these two. She turned and grabbed Nagato's shoulder, shook him to get his attention. "This."

Nagato opened, then closed, his mouth. It would be a very bad idea to ask why she hadn't just searched for these articles in the first place, he realized. Instead he tried his best to go with the flow, think through why she wanted to show him this so badly. "Okay. Sex-changing demons. Very important." Wait a second. He realized what he'd just said. "Oh. Sex-changing demons_ are_ important."

Konan smiled brightly at him. "Yes! This is the answer!" She turned and pointed excitedly to the first paragraph of both articles where the definitions of succubus and incubus were given. "This is just what Yahiko described. And Hidan said he couldn't feel demons. It's perfect!"

Nagato felt he was on much more stable footing now. "So the woman in the bar was actually a succubus, who turned into her male form when Hidan injured her. That's what Yahiko saw."

"Precisely." Konan turned back to the screen. "I took extensive notes on their characteristics, weaknesses and strengths, which are in the other room where I was doing my research. Don't worry, I remember what I found. Their primary characteristic is the ability to change sex. In addition, they have a powerful hypnotic quality. After selecting a target, they will change into the appropriate sex and approach. The victim will be utterly hypnotized by feelings of uncontrollable lust and will lose the ability to resist their influence. By having sex with the victim, the demon steals the victim's soul. So the demon is very powerful and would be too dangerous to risk fighting if only one of us were to approach. We should stay in a group composed of people who are attracted to different sexes so it can't victimize anyone."

Nagato picked up this surprisingly coherent line of thought. "But aside from that, they aren't very different from human beings, so we could deal with one, right?"

Konan nodded fast enough that she saw stars. "Yes."

"Okay." Nagato was encouraged. She was all over the place and in too much of a frenzy to be stopped, but if he was careful he might just be able to steer her in more harmless directions. "Hidan can pick up anyone's feelings, including lust, so it wouldn't matter what form the demon was in. He would still be vulnerable. We also know a succubus can hurt him very badly, so you should keep him out of the planning sessions since he won't be involved." Keep her away from Hidan - check. "Yahiko and I have different sexual orientations, so one of us would always be competent. We like to do things together anyway, so you should definitely talk with him as well about this." Get her to interact with Yahiko in some friendly manner - check. "And it would be faster if you talked to more than one person at a time so the news could spread faster. You should talk to Kakuzu and Yahiko together, since Kakuzu's staying ftoday." Protect Yahiko - check. Any other objectives?

Nagato saw the time display on the laptop. Uh oh. She'd spent so long searching that he was already supposed to be at work by now. "And, since you've already told me everything, I can go into town and go through my day as usual, and I'll tell anyone else about it if I meet them."

Konan nodded. "Yes. Tell everyone. This is very, very important news." Go to work - check. Nagato bid her adieu and left, looking for Yahiko. He found him in his own room, preparing his nerve for the day.

Nagato knocked on the open door. Yahiko looked up and relaxed when he saw who it was. "Um...hey. Why are you still here?"

Good question. "I was kidnapped by Konan into helping her deal with the mysterious woman that hurt Hidan. The good news is that she's very excited and motivated to share with you all the information she's found. The bad news is that when I say very excited, I mean way too much. 'Accidentally hurting people' way too much. I've got her focused now on telling you all about her research and planning strategies. She's going to be talking with you and Kakuzu. Keep her away from Hidan, because he's even more likely to hurt people when he's in a mood like this, do not do anything to make her angry at you, and keep her focused on whatever subject she is coherent about. Stay with Kakuzu at all times. Ride the flow. Support the flow. If she gets distracted, she might boil out in all directions and do something bad. Try to get Sasori's laptop back from her at some point."

Yahiko's eyes and mouth were wide open. "What do you mean by accidentally hurting people?"

Nagato looked back into the hall. She wasn't there. He looked back to Yahiko. "I mean that when she got frustrated searching for the information she'd found, she started growling and looked like she wanted to smash the laptop or something, and I do not at all think she is capable of stopping herself if she does get the desire to smash things. She wouldn't even find it morally or legally wrong at this point. Like I said, stay out of her way and support her in everything. Do not directly oppose her."

Yahiko gulped. "Uh-oh."

"Don't worry. I'm leaving for work now. I'll be fine. You can do this." Nagato left before any disaster could come along to undo all his efforts. Yahiko borrowed that hand gesture Hidan sometimes did when he focused and used it now. Once he did so, the amount of viable ideas that came to his mind about how to manage this situation surprised him. It wasn't like he'd ever _doubted _Nagato, but… Huh. It seemed he really could do this after all.

Back in her commandeered room, Konan wondered what exactly Nagato's job was. But he'd already left. _I'll have to ask Yahiko. No, I'll want to slice him open and other terrible things if I talk to him. Safest to have Kakuzu around at all times. _Despite this, her growling and tensing of claws continued. The electric, searing heat burned with no signs of abating or stopping. Thinking of Yahiko turned it up. Konan shuddered with pain. Her heartbeat was unstoppable. Uncontrollable. Her will was turning in Yahiko's direction._ Keep him safe. Think of demons. Think of Hidan. _

Hidan. Of course, she had to do more and more to find out about this demon. Hidan had to be kept safe. As she pushed up from the bed to go and find Kakuzu, she mustered a last bit of self control to keep herself from fully realizing that thinking of Hidan meant Yahiko was safe. For now.

**Yahiko**

After five minutes, he got up and peered out into the hallway. It had occurred to him after three minutes of thinking that in a way, this was just an adaptation of his previous plans for today. He'd already figured that asking her to train him would be the safest route. Now, he wouldn't have to ask her. Vigilance was part of a ninja's duties, right? This was just a daylong vigilance exercise that he hadn't asked her for. He could do it.

_Nagato said Hidan should be kept safe. He was already supposed to talk to Hidan. He already set things up with her. So, Hidan's probably already safe away from here. I just need to keep Konan from pursuing him. _Yahiko paused a moment to be grateful for how good he felt, thinking like this. It was always wise to take a moment to stop and be grateful for the little things. Then he continued. _I also need to find Kakuzu. Even if I don't get in her way, she reacts badly sometimes. Where would Kakuzu be? _

His original didn't seem to have any notable tracking skills, so this idea sent a thrill up Yahiko's neck. It was a good thrill. He closed his eyes and tried to tap into some kind of hidden ninja senses. Some instinct told him Konan was probably nearby. _No way ninjas operate on normal senses. Those would be too slow. I've got it! _No such instinct told him about Kakuzu. Yahiko opened his eyes and attempted to pinpoint what direction Konan was in. He couldn't tell. Then he tried approaching this instinct by another way, asking himself, _Should I go left or right? _He froze, and wondered why. He seemed to be waiting. For what?

Finally, the answer came. _Right. _His room was on the inside edge of the left hallway, so right was the direction he needed to go to reach the backyard. Yahiko ran down the hall, trusting his instincts to keep his footsteps quiet and warn him if she approached. His feet felt warm, and his steps were very quiet. _Chakra? _

He passed the second cross hallway and turned to go out the back door behind the stairs. _Ohh, that's why I was waiting. I needed her to get out of this hallway. _It made sense, and who was he to argue? He opened the door and leaped out over the stoop, traveling an unexpected distance before coming down on the grass. His surprise kicked in just before he landed, causing him to stumble. Yahiko got a really good idea what he and Kakuzu should train in first. Where was Kakuzu?

_I didn't sense any indication of him inside, but I'm pretty sure Konan's there. I'm doing an evasion exercise, right? Evade Konan and find Kakuzu. First priority of evasion is to evade, or else you could get hurt and then you can't find anything. _That made sense. It sounded like advice he'd heard once, about saving yourself before you try to save others. He ran into the forest.

His instincts were not suited to the forest floor nearly as well as they were to the inside of the building. They did nothing to muffle the sound of him stepping on twigs or crunching the meager leaf cover. Yahiko considered what to do about this. _I could do ninja things. Running seems a little ordinary. _He put a hand on a nearby tree trunk and channeled chakra into it. _Nagato's chakra can push and pull things, and mine can at least change shape or something. Maybe I can shape it into something to hold onto things? _Yahiko was delighted to discover that he did not need to. His chakra was enough to stick to the trunk without any shaping. _Oh! Nagato's special power is just that he doesn't need to touch things to do this, that's all! _He suppressed a laugh as he took a cautious step onto the trunk, then another, and another. The world looked strange from a horizontal perspective. _Wowwwwww…_

He tried leaping from tree to tree. He landed on the next tree just barely, almost falling on the ground. His vision being at right angles to the force of gravity was disorienting. He couldn't travel like this. Staying still had to be a worse way to evade someone than moving and snapping the occasional twig, right? Or… He climbed up the trunk and righted himself on a branch. Although the branch was only an inch wide, it could barely support his weight. Even at the very end, all it would do was bend. With chakra helping him hold on there was no problem. Yahiko suppressed another giggle. _Wheeee!_

He walked to the end of the branch until it started to bend beneath him, then crouched. He looked for a slightly thicker branch to absorb his landing, and jumped. _Yahoo! _He landed with a slight bending of the branch beneath him. _Oh, wow. I feel just like a monkey, when they show them jumping across a river in nature documentaries. This is so natural! _He repeated this once more, then again. Then there were no obvious branches for him to jump to, so he tried to push chakra out of his feet like rocket fuel to propel himself really high onto a trunk. His arms did not completely appreciate landing on something in front of him, but it was a fine landing. He crawled around the trunk and spied another branch. Leaping horizontally was a pain, but it was lower than he was. He jumped, and landed easily. This time Yahiko did not bother repressing laughter. _I am a tree master! _

He stopped to figure out where Kakuzu could be. _I guess he can't be too many places, since we haven't done much in the forest before. Hidan only showed us a couple bodies of water. _So he headed off, leaping from branch to branch towards the stream.

Yahiko was giddy with delight by the time he saw Kakuzu sitting by the calm part of the stream that was good to rest by. The older man seemed to be thinking, or perhaps preparing himself to deal with the insanity that awaited. Yahiko leaped once more, then got the idea to turn and wave, shouting "Hi!" in midair. This predictably altered his course. Kakuzu's eyes went wider when he saw Yahiko waving to him in midair, and stayed wide when he saw Yahiko bounce off a branch and come tumbling down, rolling along the surface of the water. He was speechless for the next minute as Yahiko got to his hands and feet, sat up, made sure he did not have any pieces of the branch left in his face, and wiped himself clean. Well, mostly. There was a small scratch scarily close to his eye. Yahiko looked down to get some water to clean it with, and realized for the first time that he was sitting on the water.

… Yahiko stared down. He was on top of the water. He had rolled across it, even. _…? _He slowly raised his head and turned back to look at Kakuzu. Kakuzu blinked and regained some of his usual composure. "Don't start getting a swelled head," he warned.

"I don't think I'm Jesus," Yahiko replied dumbly.

Kakuzu did not reply, instead looking at the water beneath Yahiko. His eyes narrowed in an expression of thought, and he got up and started walking. At the edge of the stream Kakuzu stepped forward without any hesitation, rightly assuming that hesitation would keep him from reflexively doing it, and walked out to join Yahiko on the far edge of the water. He sat down slowly, looking down at himself the whole time. When he was finished sitting, Kakuzu finally replied, "Perhaps Jesus was a ninja. I seem to be adjusting my chakra so that it holds the water together. That's why we can do this."

Yahiko finally recovered his wits enough to shake his head as if he was a dog shaking off water. "Whoa. Okay. Why didn't Konan tell us we could walk on water? This is, no doubt, the most, um, relevant part of what I've learned since she got here."

Kakuzu shivered slightly. "You _did _do this automatically without even realizing… Maybe impersonating deities is normal where she comes from."

Yahiko asked the unspoken follow up question. "Then what _isn't _normal?"

A couple seconds of silence passed, during which they silently agreed to table this discussion. Yahiko tried to use his water controlling abilities to pick up the water. It felt vaguely unpleasant to twist his chakra around in ways he hadn't tried before, and at one point he sent shivers throughout his entire body causing him to drop it, but he did succeed in picking up a small amount of water and holding it in his hands. He carefully applied this to the scratch near his eye, cautiously stirring it with a small release of chakra to get it to clean his wound. The last small traces of blood were washed away in no time, and with no pain whatsoever. Yahiko let it fall back into the stream and sighed in amazement. _Wow. I could use that in so many good ways! _In his amazement, he failed to notice what wasn't happening. Namely, that his scratch was no longer bleeding or itching.

Once they reached the bank and stood on dry land once more, Yahiko remembered his mission. "Oh! Kakuzu. I need to tell you about something." And so he filled in Kakuzu on how Konan was, what they were expected to do, and Nagato's warnings. He included Nagato's last request about Sasori's laptop, and Kakuzu's eyes did something Yahiko had never thought he would see. His last few sentences died on his lips. Yahiko was almost scared to ask, "Kakuzu? What's wrong?"

Kakuzu facepalmed gently and shook his head. "Something's wrong with that girl, that's what." He lowered his hand and clarified that Sasori's house had been broken into overnight, and the engineer was not at all happy about this. Yahiko thought he understood enough about Sasori by now to know what that meant. _What has she done? Why would she do that? _He got a sinking feeling in his gut that reminded him of despair.

Yahiko's voice was deeper than usual as he turned and, with a tone of determination that surprised himself, stated, "We have to do something for her." Kakuzu sounded bewildered as he argued with Yahiko on this point. Yahiko found his hands tightening in response. "No. She wouldn't do something to ruin her chances that badly if she could avoid it. She needs help." Kakuzu seemed to be of the opinion that if Konan wanted to destroy her own goals, she should be allowed to do so. Yahiko reached back and summoned the courage to grab Kakuzu's forearm and pull him along.

Kakuzu actually went along, surprised as he was by being moved like this. Yahiko explained, "Sorry. Nagato worried about her accidentally hurting someone. He said I shouldn't be alone." Kakuzu growled and yanked his hand out of Yahiko's grip. Resentfully rubbing it, he nonetheless followed. That did sound like something she could do, and as much as he believed in free will, he believed death for childish stupidity was a disproportionate consequence. Who knew. If he could charm moths, maybe he could charm other wild beasts. Maybe this kid would accomplish something. Kakuzu suppressed a snort.

Konan was waiting for them when they got back.

**A/N: I did an actual search on Wikipedia for this. All the articles whose sources are stated are ones I actually looked at in that search. Konan's course was my course, as I had no idea what the lists of famous and mythological demons would say either. All the random articles that "she was now looking at," with no mention of where she opened those articles from, those were just random ones that I thought might be plausible articles she could have made her way to in that time.**

**I am definitely going to have to include a break in next chapter's action to follow Sasori. There is no way one single confrontation about this could go well. See you next chapter, and happy Thanksgiving!**


	21. The Thinking Kind of Violent

**A/N: Reading over my last author notes, I see I forgot to explain something. Yes, I do know what powers succubi/incubi (there needs to be a gender-neutral name for referring to the demon in any form) actually have. I have not done the slightest research, but I did read a short story once where it was part of the plot. As a succubus, it seduced the hero once, then turned into an incubus and used his semen to get this girl he liked pregnant. They of course don't have any reproductive ability of their own, not being mortal beings. So apparently this type of demon just tricks people and causes demon-assisted pregnancies.  
**

**I think it is easy to see why I did not like that version at all, so I just came up with a completely different and more interesting (to me) idea of what they are and what they do. No complaining about inaccuracies here, please.**

**Sasori**

He walked into the shop feeling restless, uneasy, and with a vague tight feeling in his throat. He wondered about that tight feeling and vowed not to cry if he could help it. He usually would have been pretty confident that he could help it, but Sasori found himself unsure of everything today. He purchased a bottle of soda on his way in just to look at it and wonder if it felt the same way after he shook it.

He noticed his feet flexing automatically, moving him along with stealth as he entered. He prayed for nothing today to be any different than it usually was. _I'm not in the mood to be handling any more change. Just stop. _He didn't know who he was addressing, if anyone.

His prayers were not to be answered on this day. Sasori realized this as soon as he saw the front desk girl smiling. She never smiled. That was absolutely unprecedented. He stood and stared. She noticed his attention and waved. She never did that either. He continued staring blankly as he waved back. Sasori exerted tremendous effort to look anywhere else, aware that he was being rude. In the few seconds that took, she noticed and squirmed uncomfortably.

He sighed and turned to go to his area. The girl stopped and blinked, realizing for the first time how she was acting. She leaped out from behind the desk, stepping into Sasori's way. He stopped short to avoid colliding with her. It occurred to Sasori that on this particular day, they shared a common cause for misery. If she was happy, could that mean there was a good surprise?

In that vein, he mustered up some cheer and friendliness. "My apologies for staring. I was just surprised by how happy you were. Any reason?"

She smiled, and it actually seemed half genuine, which was more genuine than it ever was. "Yeah, I know, I just realized I don't usually walk around with a smile plastered all over my face like this." She giggled quietly, as if in secret, and looked over her shoulder as she leaned in. She whispered conspiratorially, "The boss took today off. He didn't say why, but he'll be gone for the whole day. Can you believe that?"

Sasori felt himself react automatically, and consciously relaxed and allowed it to happen. The girl was astonished to see his lips form into a genuine smile and his eyes grow bigger. She was the one staring now. He always seemed to be so unaffected, so… Well, she knew how people came to resemble their pets or spouses or whoever they spent the most time around. She blushed and looked down, ashamed now that she realized she'd assumed that applied to machines too.

Sasori brushed that off and discovered something highly unexpected within himself. He was pleasantly surprised by the presence of a desire to continue his good day, the motivation to, and the knowledge how all present together. He extended a hand. "I'm Sasori. I don't think we've ever talked."

She was startled, and took his hand shyly. "L-Laurie. I don't think so too."

A very Deidara-ish idea came to Sasori. Or maybe it was more Hidan-like. Either way, he whispered to Laurie, "Excuse me, I need to go use the phone in his office. You're welcome to poke around if you want."

Her mouth fell open and she cringed. That was...bold. But he was her senior, and had a better idea of how to work here, so she let him lead her to the office. She looked around, disappointed and amazed that the boss' office was really so...ordinary. Sasori went to use the phone as he had said.

He could have used his own phone, but where was the fun in that? He did look up Kakuzu's number from his phone, and dialed it into the shop's landline. It rang several times before Kakuzu picked up. "What?"

"Hi, it's Sasori. I'm calling because my boss is out of the shop for the entire day. You remember that paper? If you have a few minutes anywhere…" Sasori let the last few syllables trail off into the air, whispers of exciting possibility. He was smiling as he spoke.

There was quiet on the other end for a few seconds. Then Kakuzu replied, sounding much less irritated. "I see. Konan's keeping us busy for now, but she's learned a lot about how to use a computer." There was heavy, waiting silence for a few seconds. "How concerned are you about that break in last night?" Kakuzu asked, warily. Sasori's smile faded. Laurie came around to see what was going on. He looked at her and remembered all that could change in one day.

Sasori fought to keep his tone level as he replied, "I assume you ask because you've found out something about who broke in and what they took from my house." He was not entirely successful. Laurie's eyes went wide. She winced in sympathy, but said and did nothing else. Sasori appreciated that.

Kakuzu was silent for a few more seconds. Then: "Konan's mental health isn't very good today."

Sasori froze, his skin paled, and his eyes went wide. Laurie looked very worried. The silence dragged. Sasori opened his mouth, tried to articulate something, but could not make a sound. He remembered how Hidan had asked about a computer for the "research" he and Konan wanted to do. _He...she… How?_ Sasori finally asked a question that might have been foolish, but at least it was something. "Why didn't he stop her?"

Kakuzu's discomfort was audible, but only just. "I did say just a minute ago that this is some kind of mental health issue. Redhead and I had to drag him outside this morning because he was acting, and feeling, all out of his mind. He couldn't."

Sasori's other hand was shaking. He stilled it. "How did she even find my house?"

Kakuzu's voice dropped to a whisper. "She seems to be out of her mind in an unusually rational way. There's every possibility that she did something smart like look it up before the library closed."

Sasori's mood from earlier closed in around him, and he regretted calling Kakuzu in the first place. "_Thanks._"

Kakuzu returned to normal. Sasori could hear the shrug as he said, "Well, better than waiting. I wouldn't have said anything if you didn't sound happy enough to take the blow. She's got it here. We'll keep her from smashing it in anger. Have fun without that asshole around." Kakuzu stayed on the line to allow Sasori to have the satisfaction of slamming the phone down onto the receiver, which he took full advantage of. After the harsh clang finished echoing around the room, he noticed his breathing was fast and ragged, or his equivalent of that anyway. Laurie looked between him, the phone, and something else he didn't look at. Her eyes were wide.

"That sounded terrible. Can I do anything to help?" she asked.

Sasori made up some euphemisms on the spot to explain, "I've been hanging out with a club for the past few days, and I just found out the person who recruited me is batshit crazy and broke into my house."

Laurie extended a hand, then dropped it in a weak offer. "Sorry." She was at a loss for words.

So was Sasori. His hand tightened until it hurt, then suddenly sprang open. He threw his hands into the air. "Stay here, talk to customers. I have a side project to work on today. To hell with work." He had never spoke or thought a phrase of similar sentiment in his entire life. It felt strangely good. He supposed that meant he was going mad.

Laurie started. "Wait, you're leaving? I thought we could at least talk. Or maybe not, I could just get you things to drink or something. I thought it would be nice to share a day like this with someone…"

Sasori looked around, towards his own space. He did have all his tools there. He did like fixing machines. She was right, a day without the manager around was a day to be cherished. He suppressed the urge to punch something.

Then he unsuppressed it. An idea that was more like something Konan would have come up with seemed brilliant now. He turned to Laurie. "Sure. I'll bring it here. If we get a customer, I'll work on that. In between, you could help me with something." He was pretty sure she was a normal person of this world. Her name, at least, didn't sound anything like theirs. He did not care.

**Kakuzu**

He sighed as he walked back to join the two of them. Konan looked at him impatiently. "What was he calling for?"

Kakuzu continued to look over in Yahiko's direction. Now that he had some idea why the look in her eyes scared him, it was even worse somehow. He hoped he was good enough to keep that a secret. "Just to take me up on something I offered him. It's not important."

Yahiko sighed sympathetically. "I hope his day's turning out better than it started." Kakuzu confirmed it was, and Yahiko smiled at the good news.

"Now then," Konan interrupted, "I have news." Her arm swung, tapping the laptop she still held against her side. That and her obvious impatience were the only signs of anything being wrong. It could not yet be determined if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Yahiko straightened and faced her more directly. "What is it?"

She turned away from his attention, and paused. The laptop stopped swinging in her grip. Konan looked down at the infernal thing. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't actually shown Nagato anything she could not have told him. All she'd accomplished was to waste his time. Annoyance flared into outright anger, so she held out the laptop to Kakuzu. Sasori would be glad to hear he'd been so helpful, but not that anything of his had been smashed to the littlest of minuscule pieces like she was compelled to do at this moment. Kakuzu took it from her without hesitation, as if they did not need words to communicate this truth. That was very good. Perhaps it would help her decide what to start talking about first. There was so much!

Kakuzu tucked the laptop under his arm protectively, and waited. Nothing happened. He looked closer. To his astonishment, Konan's eyes were darting around as if she was overwhelmed. _Interesting. Perhaps it's different between her and Hidan. _He offered, "To start with, what are we worried about?"

Her eyes focused in his. He fought not to look away. Thankfully her gaze slid off of him as she replied, "Of course." Glancing far enough in Yahiko's direction that she might have caught a glimpse of his feet, she began. "It seems that the being which hurt Hidan was a succubus, a kind of demon that can change its sex. It turned into a man when hurt."

Yahiko tilted his head. "Huh. I did see it do that, and we did say it had to be a demon, and that is the only demon I know of that can do that…" He flushed slightly. "I would've thought of that eventually!"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. _Insecurity lane. _"So," he prompted, "what can they do?"

Konan started speaking before he was finished with that sentence. "A succubus is just like an ordinary person, except they possess powerful lust-based hypnotic powers. After selecting a target, they will take the appropriate form and approach. When their prey sees the demon, they will be blinded by uncontrollable desire and lose the ability to fight back. By having sex with the target, a succubus can steal their soul. The hypnosis can affect multiple targets at once. We should form mixed groups for defense."

Considering that the Akatsuki was almost entirely heterosexual male… _Damn. There are only two people we know that can mix things up. That means only two groups. _Kakuzu sighed at the thought that he would have to hang around with so many people until the problem was resolved. _And Hidan's useless in either case, so he needs extra protection. _

That was when Kakuzu realized that letting Hidan run off to be alone might not have been the best idea. _Damn. Should I mention that or not? _If Hidan was alone, he would be easy prey. But if Hidan was here near her, he would be impossible to protect and possibly get everyone killed. _Damnit, Hidan…_ He never made anything easy.

Konan did not notice any of this. She continued on after figuring out what she should say next. "There are only two people in this group, that I know of, who are not attracted to women, so we'll have two groups. You -" she gestured to Yahiko "- can be with Nagato, Sasori and Deidara. Kakuzu, Kisame, Itachi and myself will be the other group. Hidan's useless and inedible, so he'll be best off elsewhere until we defeat the demon."

Yahiko sputtered in protest. "Wha- Useless and inedible? How can you call him useless? He's a very useful guy!"

Konan growled. "_Yes, _but not in _this particular problem._ He can't protect anyone besides himself, so he's best off alone. He'll be fine."

Kakuzu stared at her with sharply narrowed eyes, scanning her face for any clues as to why she claimed that. _She could know something I don't. Or she could be overconfident. _The one thing he didn't think she was was purposefully lying. He thought she would protect Hidan, if she believed him to be in any danger. _Why doesn't she? _

Konan straightened again, standing at attention. "That's the entire briefing. Any questions?"

"Shouldn't we find out where they are, if they're even angry at us, and try to make peace before anything bad has to happen?" Yahiko asked.

Konan blinked. "Yes, of course. But if we do have to battle this demon, we should be prepared."

"To do what?" Kakuzu asked. "Did you find any demon-destroying advice while the rest of us were sleeping?"

She blinked again, seemed off guard. "No. I did not. How is a demon typically destroyed?"

Yahiko, eager to show off his knowledge, butted in before Kakuzu could sarcastically retort. "Well, I've always seen religious rituals like exorcisms used to send them back to Hell. We could find a priest."

Konan narrowed her eyes and stared into nothing in particular. She seemed distracted again. "That boy…"

"Hm?"

She extended her thoughts. "That boy claimed to be a demon. A different kind, clearly. What does demon mean in this world?"

Yahiko's confident grin slipped. "W-well," he brushed his fingers through his hair, "he didn't say what kind, and I've never heard of anything like him. We know what kind this is, and I have heard of it. A succubus is known, so there should be stories. Someone has to have said something."

"Maybe," she murmured. "I've spent a long time on research. It's time to do something else. What kind of training do you want to do?"

Neither Yahiko nor Kakuzu were quite done with this topic, but they remembered Nagato's advice. She was bored. That meant this topic was over for now. Yahiko stifled a giggle and failed to suppress a smile. He positively glowed at this change in direction. "It would be good to start at the beginning, I think. So...what are all ninjas from your world supposed to be able to do…?"

Her eyes focused as she reached back for the pouch she wore at all times. Kakuzu was excited at the idea of finally finding out what she kept in that thing. She took it off and turned to face the trees at the edge of the forest. They followed suit, which was why Yahiko was blindsided by her pouch as she threw it at him. "Excuse me. I should put targets on them first," she said before disappearing inside. Because he was blindsided, Yahiko had of course caught it accurately. Kakuzu came over and they opened it up very quickly. The two of them were somewhere between surprised and not to discover small knives inside. Demi-surprised?

She came back out in an unrealistically short time, carrying the last of the paint that Nagato had loaned her. "They're called kunai," she stated with a note of joy in her voice as she painted, "and this should be no problem at all."

**Sasori**

He heard nothing upon his return to the abandoned hotel. _Good. _The excellent part of his choice of a workshop was that this little shed was on nearly the opposite side of the building from any place people might have reason to be in. It was perfect. Sasori took the cover off the small bicycle, then shook his head. _No way, no how am I staying here with a nutball that will break into my house and steal my stuff. _He walked out without looking at any part of the still-unfurnished space.

Laurie was very curious upon his return. "A bicycle?" she asked. "Where did you find it?"

Sasori pointed to the outside lot with his head. She looked if anything even more confused by that. He shrugged. She looked at it and shrugged too. "Are there any bike parts in this place?" she asked. "I don't think we have anything."

Seeing that she was willing to follow him to his workspace, he explained on the way there, "We do not. I shall have to buy some."

"Okay," Laurie said. "So, see you later?"

"Yep." She left. Sasori's mouth twitched. He was getting to appreciate her style. It seemed highly compatible with his. He went to work.

Repairing a bicycle turned out to be more complicated than he thought. He hadn't ever had a bicycle as a child, and his training only covered motorized vehicles. Therefore, he was required to pull up diagrams to figure out what he needed to do and how to do it. The parts were easy enough to find (_Too easy, _he thought. _Why the hell would the one hardware store in town just happen to have everything I need?_), but then he discovered his tools were inappropriate. He discovered this in the course of shopping so no time was lost, and was struck by a strange idea. Sasori went to the lady manning the checkout counter. "Excuse me, do you know where I can find the tools required to install these parts?" he asked, holding up the parts in question.

She pointed him in a direction, and there they were. _This is freaking me right the hell out, _he decided. His heartbeat was just a touch above normal. He looked up which ones he needed, decided for some unknowable reason _to hell with it _and bought all of them instead, and returned. Proceeding by diagrams and mechanical intuition, the actual repair was a piece of cake. The result of his labors and freaking out was a bicycle with all parts bent or not bent as they should be, with rotating wheels and newly oiled gears, just because why not. He wheeled it out to the back lot where he had found it and left it there.

Laurie looked up quickly when he came back and asked if any customers had come in. "No. Are you done with the bike already?"

Sasori nodded.

Laurie looked thoughtful. "There's no way I can get a satisfactory answer, but I have to ask. Where'd you leave it?"

"Exactly where I found it. It didn't come with a note; I'll trust it to get home on its own."

She smiled. "Yeah, sure. So… What did you want me to help with?" She leaned forward in anticipation, her lower lip between her teeth to restrain herself from grinning all the way.

Sasori felt similar anticipation rise within him. "Do you have any martial arts training?"

Laurie burst out laughing. "I _thought _you might ask something like that, after the phone this morning! Yeah, I do. I wasn't very good at it, but I remember some basic forms and things." She looked at him hopefully.

Sasori sighed. _Good. I don't know what I might be capable of, and she is not a ninja, but at least it doesn't seem like I could accidentally kill her. _He punched one hand into the opposite palm. "I don't think I know very much either, so that makes us even."

"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't totally own you."

"I have the power of anger on my side. Bring it."

Just in case anything destructive happened, they went to the boss's office before starting.

**Yahiko**

He and Kakuzu stood and stared at their handiwork. The large target painted on a tree opposite where they stood now had no paint showing. Instead of red, its circles were clearly outlined in the steely black of kunai. They had both tried to hit the center at first, and the center now had two kunai sticking out of it side by side. Yahiko fumbled with a kunai as he stared at what they had accomplished, turning it over in his hand unconsciously.

Kakuzu looked down, flexed his hand and wrist. "So this is normal, huh?"

"Shuriken, too." Konan handed them shuriken as well. "Most shinobi carry both. They can be very useful for setting traps, forcing enemies to move in certain directions, and so on. Try making a new target above this one."

Kakuzu nodded his head in Yahiko's direction. The younger man fumbled with the shuriken, trying to figure out how to hold it. There was only so much muscle memory could tell him about fine details. He turned red after a few seconds of this and fumbled more, almost dropping it. Kakuzu also tried holding a shuriken as if to throw it, and discovered that he didn't know how either. The sound of steel drawing across steel drew their attention, and Konan held up a shuriken pinched precisely between the knuckles of her fingers in a way that neither of them would have tried unless desperate. Yahiko adjusted his grip and attempted to emulate Kakuzu. _He doesn't know the little details, either. It's fine. We're both learning. I'm probably never going to use this anyway. _It helped that this was the second time he tried to talk himself out of being embarrassed, after she had previously shown the two of them how to hold and throw a kunai.

He took aim, or hoped he did, and swung his arm out. He tried a strategy he'd thought of to keep from being distracted, and distracted himself by closing his eyes and imagining moonlit moths in the instant before he threw it. When he heard a thunk, he opened his eyes and saw the shuriken embedded in the center of the trunk above the rings of kunai. It was angled weirdly. Yahiko wondered if that was a bad angle or a normal one for shuriken as he stepped back.

It turned out that there was no such thing as a weird or bad angle for shuriken. Their skills with shuriken were less precise, so only one fuzzy circle was traced around the central one, and it was filled with shuriken at all angles. Konan hummed some wordless tune as she walked around behind the tree after they were done, picking up the shuriken that had missed entirely. Yahiko recognized that he and Kakuzu were practicing and refining more than just weapons skills. He'd missed fewer times than Kakuzu; the older man did not seem to have any coherent technique for avoiding distraction like he did. _Konan did say I could use some mental training! She'll be proud of me one day, when she's comfortable enough to. I know it._

Konan continued humming whatever it was as she came back and refilled her pouch, right up until she spoke. Yahiko thought it sounded different now. When she spoke, he lit up and grinned, forgetting to wonder about changing tunes. "Ideally, ninja should be able to use weapons without having to distract themselves," she murmured, "but learning to distract yourselves is also good exercise."

He looked at Kakuzu with face beaming after she said this. It would have been tacky and unbelievable to say out loud that he had just been thinking that, but Yahiko thought Kakuzu could understand a look just as well. Kakuzu rolled his eyes. That did not injure Yahiko's sunny disposition in the slightest. Konan finished and stood up, but did not immediately begin doing anything. This left Kakuzu an opening in which to clear his throat.

"I have news," he offered. His dark eyes were narrowed squarely at Konan. Yahiko was confused. _News? Has anything happened? Oh...Yeah! _He looked to Konan too, eager for her answer. She looked back as if their eagerness was infectious. After replacing the pouch with great haste, her hands began to tap against her thigh.

"Report," she ordered. Yahiko would have thought it was funny if her eyes didn't have a strange glimmer in them now and she wasn't leaning forward, looking like she might pounce. He unobtrusively stepped back.

Kakuzu held his ground. "The dominant religion of this area," he began, "is centered around a man who lived 2000 years ago and is believed to be a manifestation of God, or partially God, or the son of God, or something along those lines. People thought this because he, _supposedly_, performed a bunch of miracles when he was alive."

"And?" she urged.

"These miracles were things no human being could have the power to do, like multiplying bread and fish, turning water into wine, things like that."

"And?"

"The most well known and fantastical sounding of those miracles was when he _walked on water,_" Kakuzu finished. "Weapons training is all well and good, but when Fluffbrain over here said he wanted to hear more about what was normal for people in your world, he was asking about the fact that impersonating deities seems to be a thing all ninjas do."

He paused, so Yahiko continued. "Yeah, that. Heck, even Jesus just walked on water. We heard about this when I kinda fell and rolled across the little stream in the woods. I've heard of some people showing how it's possible to walk on blocks of stuff that's invisible underneath the surface of water, but rolling is...different. That's just completely different from anything. It's magic."

Konan's mouth was open. Her jaw worked back and forth while she processed, as if she was reading their words back to herself. "All it takes is chakra and the ability to use it...could this really be the first time?...I've never considered...no, but that's very different. Or is it?..." Her words trailed off, fragments of sentences hinting at very, very interesting things drifting from her as she thought out loud.

When at last her jaw moved and her eyes shifted back and forth but no more words came, Yahiko cleared his throat quietly. She blinked, came back to the current situation. It occurred to Yahiko that ninjas were supposed to work in the shadows, right? _That probably wasn't something she would normally do. If I think about what ninjas are supposed to do, she shouldn't be making people mad by breaking into their houses. She shouldn't be randomly running around or destroying things, without taking caution. She shouldn't be talking so openly like this either, or losing track of what's really happening. Those aren't huge problems here. Bad, but not life-threatening or anything. But before, with other ninjas around… _Yahiko considered the implications of that.

He only got in a couple seconds of considering before her attention turned toward him, which was the point of clearing his throat in the first place. All his recent mental training came in handy for pushing aside all of his thoughts on _that_ matter and recovering his previous thoughts on other matters. "Um...so...right!. So, what were you just talking about?"

Konan seemed unsure. "I don't remember." _Oh, right. Runaway train of thought, of course she wouldn't. _

"Well, you were just saying something about 'the first time' and something you never considered and chakra." Even Yahiko had doubts that that would be enough for her to remember from.

"Ah." Konan finished piecing together the remains of that train of thought. "You here can use chakra. That's a skill that requires two things. You have to be able to use it, and there has to be chakra available to use." She looked around and up, as if trying to see something in the world around them that was not apparent to normal senses. "I doubt this Jesus was a shinobi, because he's fully belonging to and in this world and you are not, but maybe this has half happened before." She shook her head. "I mean...what I mean to say is, maybe...There are two parts to the usage of chakra. There has to be chakra, and one must learn to use it. All of you are here, and this is a region that provides everything you need, including chakra. Maybe something similar happened, creating this environment but not reviving anyone from my world. Maybe exceptional people of this world can learn to use chakra without guidance."

Yahiko replied, "But chakra's in our bodies, and we control it in our bodies. Do ninjas have any special body parts used to connect with chakra or something? It kinda feels like we do. I don't think just having chakra around could make a normal person grow those."

Kakuzu backed him up with, "A form of energy like this _has _to have changed the course of evolution. I'm amazed that the greatest differences we've seen are animal characteristics, strange eyes, and hair colors that would get a non-superpowered animal killed. It's incredible that humans evolved in your world in the first place. I agree with Airhead here, the abilities we have are almost certainly impossible for a normal person to learn."

"Ah...so...it is not likely that Jesus was a shinobi," Konan concluded. "Then how?"

Kakuzu snorted. "Those are just stories, put together by a bunch of people who weren't Jesus after he died. Somebody with that name probably founded his own religion, but that's as far as I'll believe."

"It doesn't matter, anyway," Yahiko deflected with a smile. "We just thought of that as a way of understanding and saying how awesome these abilities you take for granted are in this world, that's all. We know what we can do now, and we'll hear more from you. There's no need to really think more about him at all."

Kakuzu interjected, "Thought exercises."

"Yeah...it would be really interesting to have a big group discussion of this, actually. We should!"

Konan shook her head as if to dodge another runaway train of thought before it could kidnap her away. "It sounds like you two are requesting a lesson on the nature of chakra."

Yahiko raised a hand shyly. "Well, wait...I like amateur stuff the best. Can we have a big discussion before you mention anything? Maybe, as people who don't know anything, we could even think of something new and revolutionary," he added to justify his wish.

"All right, all right!" Konan snapped, though nobody had been speaking very loudly or bothering her at all. "What else?"

"Maybe we should go back to the task at hand," Kakuzu directed. "We are here trying to defeat a demon. Maybe we should explore how."

Konan's eyes focused clearly again, and she made a reasonable suggestion that they agreed to. They were in the clear.

**A/N: Have I mentioned how much I've enjoyed taking religious studies classes? Because I totally have. Feel free to bet whatever seems important to you, I will be writing such a discussion somehow and somewhen. This last bit was _awesome._**

**So, the front desk lady Sasori works with is a character, with a name, who does stuff. That was not planned in any way. Well, I guess it won't change too much for Sasori to have a new friend. I really like Laurie, actually. Definitely glad she appeared. I know nothing about martial arts, so expect incredible vagueness should I make an attempt to describe exactly what they're doing. Feel free to identify any favorite characters you have so far. I've already got one, and he's not on the character list. **


	22. Perseveration

**A/N: The posting of this chapter is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.  
**

**To continue with this story and post right on time, even in the middle of that end of the semester "hand in all these final projects" season, demonstrates a degree of persistence and loyalty I have not known myself to show anywhere else. Granted, I will do a lot of things on a deadline, but even then I have once or twice failed to complete a school assignment on time. This is...is _huge._**

**The vagueness was prophecied. It is here.**

**.**

**Sasori**

The first thing Sasori discovered about his hand to hand fighting ability was that he was really good at dodging.

"Woah, you're really flexible!" Laurie puffed as he ducked his head out of the way of her chopping motion. Sasori followed up immediately with a jabbing motion upward that pressed into her upper arm. She winced and her arm went weak, which was good because he was forced to dodge to that side of her body as her leg came in.

He finally replied, "Yeah, I noticed. I didn't know I was this fast."

She paused and changed stance, raised her arms into a block. "Okay, so how strong are you?" She made it look so natural. Someone else might have missed that she probably needed the break from aerobic exercise. Sasori smiled.

He curled his hand into a fist. "How does my form look?"

Laurie lowered her arms to check. "Your fist is pretty decent, but you should shift your stance more. Move your foot back, maybe. It's called 'moving forward.' You should be ready to do it."

Sasori shifted his feet in a way that felt comfortable, and lunged. His blow struck her raised arms and she cried out, "Ow!" Sasori winced as well. He stepped back, cradling his right hand in his left. His knuckles had not appreciated that. The pain faded after a few seconds, but Sasori retained lesson number two about his hand to hand fighting ability: he was not good at direct blows.

Laurie lowered her arms and rubbed them, wincing as her hands passed over the bruising parts. "Ow. Okay, full disclosure: I haven't done anything like that for a long time. I'm not sure if I ever did. The style I learned focused a lot more on chopping and other stuff that's not punching."

Sasori checked his fingers. No bruising, and they had stopped complaining. "I think that only hurt because I have good arms or something. My hands don't appreciate this. Your style sounds good."

Laurie nodded. "Yeah."

They took a short break for her to go back to the desk and see if anyone had arrived, which was not the case. She came back with a water bottle. Sasori poured some into his mouth gladly before handing it back. He took a moment to wonder about his fighting style.

_Okay. Let's see: I'm good at avoiding getting hit, but not at dealing damage. My instincts lead me to do things that might be good for getting someone off me, but aren't so effective on their own. My original used puppets. _He closed his eyes and breathed deeply while he tried to add that all together into a mental video of how his original probably fought. He opened his eyes shortly after. Something wasn't adding up.

They got back to their feet and tried again. This time she showed him a couple moves and encouraged him to use them against her. Sasori kicked the boss's desk aside, figuring he would need more room. It also gave him an intense morale boost. He lunged forward, trying to combine his speed, her advice, and the instincts that had led him to do that jab earlier. He landed several blows, but they landed clumsily and threw his weight off. She reached in and scooped his leg out from under him with almost no visible effort.

Sasori got back up. This wasn't working very well, and it was working a lot better than beginner's punching had. Nevertheless, he wasn't tired. "Rematch?"

Laurie nodded, and they tried again. This time he weaved around her blows much better. "Hey," Laurie complained, "You're just dodging again." Her next attack received a sideways jab, another matter of reflex. Instead of taking that as a good chance to dodge, he tried to land a hit. She blocked with her weakened arm easily enough and took advantage now to knock him to the floor again. She lowered her arms and removed her jacket and outer long-sleeve shirt, catching her breath and hopefully cooling off. Sitting down on the floor across from him, Laurie said, "Okay, it's like you're really good at keeping yourself safe, but when you do your hands are out all over the place. They're not there for you to use at all. You need to get them in more."

Sasori looked up at her with dawning comprehension. "My hands?" He remembered how his original used strings to control his puppets. If his hands were tied up with that…_ Son of a bastard. I've never learned to fight up close at all. _He got to his feet. "Rematch?"

Laurie looked at him as if her entire perception of him was changing. "You're not even hot? How?"

Sasori opened his mouth to answer, but stopped when he realized he had no idea what to say. He had heard everyone else talking about how no normal people noticed anything strange, in fact regarded everything as perfectly normal, but did that matter here? It was one thing for normal people you bought things from or passed in the street to not mention anything, but somehow it felt different to have a conversation about alternate worlds with a real person who just happened to be normal. Laurie seemed pretty reasonable, just like everyone else he knew. Sasori had trouble imagining that she was really so different from himself.

Laurie seemed to get worried when he failed to respond to her not-serious, almost joking question. Her eyes searched his face. "Are you okay?"

Sasori looked down at her. _I don't have time for this. _He was careful to look somewhere else before continuing so she wouldn't think he was growing increasingly irritated at her. _I don't have time for a single second of this. I don't have time to deal with my house being broken into, I don't have time to waste worrying about how much to say about everything she forced me into hearing about. I just don't want to bother. _His hands curled and tightened.

He cut off whatever else Laurie might have been about to say with a look. He uncurled his hands and exhaled. "I don't have time for this." Then his eyes sprang open and he turned to face her. "I'm a ninja. The lunatic who broke into my house is a much more powerful ninja who promised to teach everyone about what our originals did, because it turns out we're not real. I am planning on releasing some of this bullshit here, getting my laptop back, and getting the hell away from that crazed bird. That's why I'm not even hot. My original probably had to deal with even more of this than I do. I don't envy anyone."

Laurie continued sitting there with mouth agape while he recovered his breath. Sasori could feel the tension drain from him. _It feels a little nice to have told her…_ Then she shook herself. Sasori waited for whatever would happen to happen. The inevitable was good. The inevitable could be adjusted to. He only didn't want to have to be pulled two ways at once.

Laurie summed up his rant as, "So, you've had some intense aerobic training before?"

"Not this version of me, but yeah, sure."

"Um… Okay." Her shoulders slumped. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have said I could take you down. Sounds like you're _miles _ahead even if you don't know how to hit."

Sasori's face changed. He supposed that meant something, but what? _She…really doesn't notice at all. Nothing about this seems wrong to her. Is that okay? Do I want her to recognize that there's something wrong around me? _He had no idea.

"How...how do you not see what's wrong with that?" he asked in a low whisper.

Laurie got up. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay. You're not wrong." Sasori saw it coming, but was still surprised when she hugged him. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and squeezed tight. _This is weird. _"It's okay," she whispered into his shoulder. _When was the last time anyone hugged me? _He gave up. Sasori let his eyes sag shut, his arms relax. He did not hug her back but neither did he resist. _Hm. This is nice…_

Eventually she let go. He opened his eyes and looked at her with his usual noncommittal, blank look. Laurie was unsure what to do with herself. "S-Sorry." Sasori shook his head no. She had nothing to apologize for. He used the puppet strings jutsu to open the door. There was no need to hide anything from her anymore. He went out, walked into his own workshop. It would make a good place to think for a while. Some instinct compelled him to take a look out the small window first.

Laurie followed him, unsure if that was the right thing to be doing or not. "Sasori? You...need anything?" He raised a hand and waved her over without taking his eyes from the window. She walked over and looked out at whatever he was looking at.

They both stood and silently stared at what was out there. The little bike Sasori had left outside after fixing was gone. In that same spot was a larger, adult-size bicycle with a broken chain. But it wasn't alone.

Across the lot, another bike was propped up on its kickstand next to Sasori's motorcycle. It was a beautiful shade of silver, and a racing bike that could not have been ridden out here without suffering some shocks. It had no dirt on it. Sasori slowly raised his hand and, gently tugging on Laurie's arm, brought them both away from the window in a way that hopefully didn't attract too much attention.

They both raised a hand as if to point to the outside, lowered it, and shook their heads as one. Sasori was torn whether to bang his head against the wall or celebrate. But they had silently agreed not to talk about it, so he did neither. "Rematch?"

"Yeah. Maybe you can practice moving slowly, with your hands in a good place this time." She was in the boss' office before he had taken a single step. "Or is Mr. Ninja tired?"

**Samehada**

Samehada crept out of his hiding place and up to Yahiko, who was sitting some distance away from the back stoop on a log. Yahiko jumped before he looked down and realized who it was. "Hey. Where have you been? Kisame left a while ago."

Samehada pulled inward, making himself seem small, and wriggled under the nearest plant. He hoped Yahiko would interpret this as 'hiding,' which was what he had been doing ever since he'd gone looking for Kakuzu after Kisame left and stumbled across Konan's traces. Her chakra, which he thought was the thing that the people put out which tasted good, did not taste quite right. He'd chosen to stay away from that entirely.

Yahiko tilted his head, confused. "Well, whatever you were doing, maybe you can keep me company now." He reached down and paused, waiting until Samehada wagged his tail before petting the shark on the nose. "Heehee. I've never seen a shark wag its tail before. Are you sure you're not a dog?"

Samehada growled no. Yahiko resumed petting with a smile. "I don't know what that means, but okay. So, we're busy coming up with ideas for how to defeat a demon. Or, well, they are. I don't really want to be fighting anyone. I hope Nagato and I, and Konan probably if the succubus-lady is still angry, can talk her down." He gestured to Konan and Kakuzu on the back stoop, the former sensible enough not to lean over the latter's back too closely, although he was still visibly irritated by her presence. "I guess it is good to know, but, don't tell anyone, but I'm a little worried." Yahiko lowered his head into his shoulders as if hiding. "You weren't there, but Konan did a lot of talking a few days ago about our originals killing people, and Kakuzu really thought that made sense. I don't think I can tell him he's wrong the way Nagato did."

Samehada growled softly and snapped his teeth in Kakuzu's direction. _Stitch Human shouldn't be mean to Nice Human. Nice Human is good. _He licked Yahiko's hand to comfort him.

Yahiko looked struck. "Yeah. I might not know what to say, but Nagato's always said I know what to do. I'll prove he's wrong with my actions! Thanks." He moved off the log and sat down on the grass, inviting Samehada to settle in his lap. Samehada yawned and curled up there. These humans were funny. _Nice Human would be good to play with while Stitch Human distracts Dangerous Cutting Person. _He promptly uncurled and bumped his head into Yahiko's chest, wagging his tail. Yahiko held him still for a few seconds while he figured out what Samehada was trying to say. "...You look happy. Hey, want to see some cool things I learned I can do?"

Samehada agreed. Yahiko stood up and turned to walk into the forest. "Okay, so, I actually can do a few cool things. Earlier- "

Earlier, Nagato had told him about safety in numbers, which was why he'd found Kakuzu before approaching Konan. Yahiko turned and looked back. A few pieces of paper fluttered wildly in the air as Konan paced back and forth behind Kakuzu. Neither of them seemed to notice. Kakuzu was even more irritated looking. Samehada grabbed his lower leg and started chewing. _Play! Play away from Dangerous Hunting Person. _

Yahiko pulled his lower leg loose and came to a decision. "Sorry. Maybe I'll show you later. Can you see them from there? I think Kakuzu could use some help." Samehada propped himself up on his fins and let out a rattling growl as loud as he dared make it. _Dangerous White Claw Person tastes stronger! Dangerous! Stronger taste means danger! _

Yahiko stared with wide eyes. Samehada wondered if Nice Human was a little stupid. He certainly didn't seem to understand why Samehada was so agitated. Yahiko looked up at Konan, then back down at Samehada. "Is it something about Konan?"

Samehada threw himself into paroxysms flopping up and down the way humans did to say yes. Yahiko relaxed. _Relax? Nice Human… _Samehada whimpered. He didn't want to lose someone like Nice Human.

Then Yahiko bent down. "Don't worry. I made a promise. Anytime I try to help someone, I make myself a promise that I'll stay with them until they're helped or I'm really, absolutely sure it would be better to go. I'm not sure of that, and she's not helped. So it's okay. Don't worry about me. It would really hurt me more to be away but safe than if she hurt me. So…" Yahiko waved his hands around. "So don't. I don't like it when other people worry about me. Don't."

He tried to say more for a few seconds before giving up. Samehada let out a questioning growl. _Why does Nice Human like hurting? _That made just no sense to the shark. And he still didn't want Nice Human to be hurt by Dangerous Claw Person. But Nice Human had said not to worry, so Samehada lowered his head and growled his resentment quietly.

Yahiko reached out and patted him on the head. "I know. I'm just...I don't know what I'm trying to say. I know worrying about me is what people who care about me want, and I'd never do anything to hurt them, but it kind of hurts me too when they worry? ...I just want to stick around and help her. I think the best way to keep me safe is to help, since I don't think it's the right thing to do to stop. So…" He stopped short of asking Samehada to help. That would be asking a little too much. Or would it?

Samehada let out another questioning growl, this one with undertones of despair. It was a _You're making my head hurt, I'll just give up and do what you say _growl. He nuzzled Yahiko's hand and looked toward Kakuzu and Konan. Nice Human probably couldn't sense chakra like he could, so Nice Human couldn't know that the chakra was burning and wild and erupting off of Dangerous Person. It made Samehada's tongue curl back into his mouth to remember the taste of it. The chakra was wrong. Not bad tasting, but wrong in some other way. Yes, Nice Human needed to be protected from this.

Yahiko wrapped his arms around the shark briefly. "Great, thank you. I think I'll just ask if she'll come with me and Nagato to do that, get her off of Kakuzu's back for a few seconds. He looks really annoyed." He patted Samehada on the nose and added, "I guess I'll just leave you to do whatever it is you want to do, then."

_I'll taste some of the burning chakra so it doesn't burn Nice Human,_ Samehada decided. Yahiko walked up and called, "Hey," to get Konan's attention. Samehada rushed up and started chewing on her leg before she could do anything bad. Sometimes the chakra did taste bad when it was filled with danger and the wanting to hurt someone, but it was okay now. It was even a little warm. She must have been amused at Samehada's antics, from that and from the way she didn't pull her leg away.

Kakuzu sighed and closed the laptop.

**Deidara**

Having gone shopping the day before, there was only so much of his own life to attend to before Deidara's worries about Sasori imposed on his mind intolerably. It was just after noon when he found himself outside the auto shop. Business was very slow today; he didn't see anybody in to get their vehicle looked at.

Deidara looked around as he walked in. _The place really looks deserted, yeah. That's probably good, hm! _Or was it? Deidara had the distinct impression that Sasori liked working, but also the impression he did not like people hanging around. So was it good or bad to not have customers around? Deidara abandoned this complete waste of thought space upon seeing that even the front desk lady was gone.

_What the hell? Is something wrong? _He walked past her desk into the main body of the shop. A muffled thump came from behind a closed door at the end of the hall. Deidara crept closer. Muffled voices came from behind the door. One of them laughed. The other chuckled with genuine, but reserved, humour.

Deidara knocked two times, then opened the door slowly. His mouth fell open as he saw Sasori sitting on a desk wedged into the near right corner of the room, looking over some bruises on his arm. Sasori was smiling as he contemplated the bruises, looking into them as if they had some deeper meaning than ordinary injury. The front desk lady was also there, sitting on the desk. She was in a T-shirt and looked like she wanted to be in shorts as well, and held a water bottle in one hand. She stared at Deidara with alarmed curiosity. "Oh, hi. Um…" She perched on the edge of the desk, looking increasingly flustered as the seconds passed. "Uh…"

"He's not a customer," Sasori explained. Looking up from his bruises, he waved Deidara in. "He's my friend, and also a ninja."

"Oh," the front desk lady sighed. She still looked very embarrassed. She got up and skittered over to the other side of the room to get her long sleeved shirt from where it lay against the wall beneath the board.

Deidara finished assessing the situation. "Heh. Having fun, hm?" he asked Sasori. The look he shot more than indicated what he meant.

Sasori allowed no sign of recognition of what Deidara meant to show on his face. Instead he smiled and held up his arms. "Yes, yes I have. Laurie here has studied martial arts in the past, and has a skill level similar to mine. She's been showing me some things."

Laurie piped up from where she was putting on her shirt, "He's a complete novice. I've been handing him his ass for the past hour. He's good at dodging, but has no idea how to strike."

Sasori shot back, "My original was a puppetmaster who used strings coming from his fingers. Of course I'm a novice. You can't possibly be surprised that my hands are nowhere near fighting position." He shifted his weight over and whispered to Deidara, "She's sensible and I didn't care, so I told her. It's fine."

Deidara opened his mouth, but Laurie joined in with, "Well, he's not _that _bad, really. He can give some sharp jabs to keep me off him, and his endurance is better. I'd have landed on this floor myself if we didn't take the occasional break after I knock him down."

Deidara closed his mouth and looked sideways at Sasori. _I call bull on this, hm. _Sasori looked genuinely confused at this look. Deidara was impressed at his faking skills; no way could Sasori not get it.

Sasori shook his head. "Dei, this is Laurie. Laurie, this is Deidara. He's an obnoxious kid I once helped, and he hasn't left me alone since. He was there when I got the notification this morning."

Laurie's eyes darted between them as she returned to her position on the desk. "The notification...about...that?"

"Of course, yeah. The break in," Deidara clarified. He turned to Sasori. "You jerk! Here I was a little worried, and you're spending all your time alone with a beautiful woman, hm."

Sasori's eyes widened and his face twisted. His hands formed into the form that Laurie had taught and he viciously jabbed Deidara just beneath the neck. Deidara dodged, but not enough. He received the blow in the neck. "Ow!" he yelped as he held his hand up to his neck and wondered if that had been hard enough to injure any blood vessels.

"Sorry," Sasori apologized, "I was aiming for just below your neck, where it wouldn't have hurt as much."

Laurie went over to check Deidara's neck. She sighed in relief and said, "I don't see a huge bruise rapidly forming, so probably no internal bleeding." To Sasori, she added, "Good form. Maybe practice more to take into account a moving person."

Sasori shivered. "It's all his fault for suggesting perverted things like that."

Dei whined, "It's not perverted. Perversion is things that aren't normal, and it's totally normal to enjoy the company of a lady, yeah."

"No." Sasori kicked this general topic into a dumpster fire. "So, I assume you're here because you were worried about how I was handling the break in, or something like that."

"Yeah." Deidara recovered. "So how are you, huh?"

"Fine," Sasori answered.

"Not so fine," Laurie disagreed. "To celebrate the boss being out today (this is his office by the way, don't tell anyone), he called someone earlier. Whoever it was mentioned that some lady broke into his house. This practice is helping him take out his feelings about that."

Dei's eyes grew wide. "Oh..._shit._" He remembered as well as Sasori did Hidan coming in last night to ask after Sasori's laptop for their research. "The laptop, hm?"

"Yeah." Sasori sighed. "The frickin' laptop. Kakuzu's looking after it."

Deidara gulped. "Damn. So...doesn't sound like you're going to be able to do that, huh?"

They looked at him in confusion. Deidara reminded Sasori of his earlier threat to test out his ninja powers on whoever was responsible. Sasori's fist tightened. He said nothing.

"So how are you doing, hm?" Dei asked in a gentle tone, sitting on the desk next to Sasori. _Would he like a hug or not? Probably not. _

Sasori was quiet. Eventually he said, "I would like to find out more about what is happening." He made no move for the boss's phone. Deidara realized and pulled out his own phone, dialed Kakuzu's number.

"What?!" Kakuzu growled after picking up. Deidara jumped back, as did Sasori and Laurie because Kakuzu had snarled loudly enough for them to hear.

"Is this a bad time, hm?" Deidara asked, after a second of recovering his wits.

"Ugh." Kakuzu huffed. "Psycho Lady's been breathing down my neck for the past hour to get me to somehow find information that doesn't frickin' exist faster." There was commotion on the other end of the line. Deidara thought he heard other people's voices, and Kakuzu snapping back.

Eventually Kakuzu returned. "Anyway," he continued, "We were looking into how to destroy a demon. There is no information about that available at all. None. An hour wasted for nothing."

Deidara was unsure of how much he should say in front of Laurie. "Ummm…" he stalled, looking between her and Sasori. Sasori shook his head and mouthed, _Go ahead._ "Don't we have a demon down the street?" Deidara asked. "Have you asked him?"

There was silence. Kakuzu deadpanned, "Do you hear yourself?"

Deidara facepalmed. "Okay, yeah, that was stupid, yeah. Ummm…"

There was more sound on the other end of the line. It was relatively quiet, then took a sudden leap in volume that had Deidara pulling the phone away from his ear. It sounded like happy noise, at least.

"What the fuck was that, huh?" he asked Kakuzu once the noise subsided.

"The fuzzy orange airhead I'm here with loves your idea," Kakuzu accused. "He wants to leave Samehada with me and go, _alone,_ to talk to the demon and ask how we can kill his kind."

Deidara went pale. "No, no, that's not what I was thin- "

"Too late," Kakuzu cut him off. "He raced away before we could talk sense into him, and now Konan's going too. If the demon doesn't kill him first, she will. I hope you're happy."

"What have I done?" Deidara whispered.

**A/N: What _has_ Deidara done? Tune in next week to find out! (or not, I just like that phrasing)**

**Sammy and Yahiko are by far the cutest characters in the story, with Hidan making occasional guest appearances. They all deserve pats on the head. **

**Kakuzu seems like he could use some reminding of what kind of demon they're talking about, exactly. **

**BTW I'm loving the bigger numbers. The peak last week on Dec. 1st was 70. I'm used to considering 28 or so a peak. It's nice to think that I inspire happiness somewhere with my work.**


	23. Sacrificial Lamb

**A/N: I might have to change this story's rating after this chapter. I'm not sure. EDIT: I asked my dad, and he doesn't think a single paragraph of description warrants that. At most, I should put an author's note to warn readers who don't want to read some gory details about a dismembered deer. It's the paragraph after the deer is killed, if anyone does want to skip it. Well, just the interior of it. The first and last sentences of that paragraph are the reason why I put in such details in the first place. It has purpose.  
**

**.**

**Konan**

Still steaming with anger from Kakuzu's remark, yet also expending tremendous effort to hold herself back, Konan hadn't heard much of what Yahiko was talking about. He'd started a lively discussion with Kakuzu after something Kakuzu said. Konan had turned away, looked at the trees. _I really shouldn't tear Kakuzu to pieces. It wouldn't work anyway. _He could probably break her leg if he fought back. _How good would that feel? _She shook her head. Yahiko was very happy about something. His body language was open and expressive, and he was talking faster. She wondered if he agreed with Kakuzu.

_Slow down. Slow. There is a demon. We do not know how to kill it. What next? _She thought of Hidan. He probably thought this demon's powers, if nothing else, were _super cool._ She wondered where he was, how he was doing. _I hope he's okay…_

Kakuzu shouted something angrily, and Konan caught a glimpse of Yahiko running past her. He disappeared around the side of the building. "What the fuck does he think asking a demon how to kill a demon is going to accomplish?" Kakuzu asked rhetorically.

Time slowed. Konan's eyes widened. _Yahiko…_ The demon. He liked ghosts. A slick feeling like blood crept over her hands, and Konan _knew_, as if the news had been delivered straight to her soul by a committee of gods, what would happen. Her eyes traced downwards, every detail of Yahiko's disemboweled torso clearly outlined. _No. _She couldn't move. _No. _The building was at her side, then behind, and she was flying.

Yahiko was making cheerful noises as he tried to propel chakra out of his feet to go faster. He wasn't as good at it as Hidan was, but in the however long it had been that Konan couldn't move, he'd already made it to the edge of the wrong lawn. There he stopped. There Konan's vision narrowed. She could see nothing but him, she must reach him, she must reach out - her hand wrapped around the back of his neck and they toppled forward onto the ground. He cried out and tried to struggle, but Konan's hand squeezed tighter and silenced him. _How could you?! _

She pressed his face into the dirt, held him down so he could not move or do anything. _You...you… _A red mist clouded her vision. Konan looked down at his beautiful head and did not see it, saw instead Yahiko throwing himself forward. Her teeth and claws were set ablaze. She was suddenly very aware of them and had a very strong desire to use them. _**You…**_

Her other hand came up over his shoulder. Just them the red cleared enough for her to see his hair instead, and Konan realized who she was holding. She also realized she was shaking, growling like some kind of feral beast, about to claw his beautiful skin off, and he was very lucky that she'd gotten a grip on the back of his neck or else his trachea would be broken by now.

She shook for a couple seconds before she managed to stuff her hand into her mouth and sate her desire to bite and tear that way. She could feel the bones of her hand crunch together painfully, and the sound itself sent painful sensations racing up and down her spine. It felt so _good. _Konan bit down harder, the pain releasing her limbs from their possession and allowing her full control once again. She stopped just short of breaking her own hand and bit the other one after she took it back from Yahiko's neck and stood up. A drop of red at the edge of her vision had the first hand back in her mouth before she was fully aware that it was her own blood. It tasted salty, and vaguely unpleasant. She did not dare to do anything else but lick at it.

Yahiko still lay on the ground, but was visibly tense enough that she could tell he was conscious and aware. He seemed to be fully aware of the danger he was in. An image of Yahiko throwing himself forward flashed again, and Konan felt the urge to yell. _So only __**now **__does he feel like protecting himself? _A deer bounded up, entering her vision from the left, across the wrong grass. A roar burst from Konan's chest and she lunged. The deer made a sound like screaming - she hadn't known they could do that, but it felt _so good _to hear - which was quickly silenced as her paper stabbed through it, ripping out flesh and muscle and bits of bone. She noticed that some of the paper was over her fingers, formed into claws. When had that happened? In fact, she did not remember using any jutsu at all. But the feeling of cartilage stretching and tearing beneath her new paper claws was too good to resist, so she tore out its throat. Blood was everywhere. The urge to yell and bite and tear was satisfied. She stood back, dizzy with delight, and wondered where the deer had come from and why. _Must be a gift. _

Her breathing eased back to normal and she dispersed the paper jutsu. There was the sound of quiet rustling as Yahiko turned to look. Konan suddenly felt nauseated. She looked down slowly at what he must also be seeing. The deer was in pieces, pieces that merged at joints whose inner workings were now fully exposed. The ball and the socket of its right shoulder were both visible despite the socket being filled with blood. Its skin was torn into jagged shreds, separated from the flesh beneath, and turned inside out in a few places. Raw muscle sagged like overslackened bowstrings. The deer's face was visible. It looked as if it was looking towards the heavens for a divine miracle that could save it. Konan saw all of this now as Yahiko would see it, understood it as he would understand it. She gagged, but had not eaten or drank anything for almost three quarters of a full day.

They both were saved when the deer's face dissolved. The upturned eyes lost their definition and flowed back into the rest of its body, all of which had turned black like the void. It was a black that no light would ever escape from. Yahiko let out a short, high scream as he caught a glimpse of Konan's cloak. Her cloak, formerly stained with blood, was now stained with the void, which was much clearer against the black fabric than the blood had been. It escaped from the cloth as easily as oil might flow out of water and joined the rest. The former deer was now a rolling black ball of darkness. Konan stepped back to join Yahiko, who had stumbled to his feet. He tensed, but allowed her to lean on his shoulder. They stared together at the darkness.

"Merry Christmas," came a cheerful voice from behind them.

Any dilemma there might have been was resolved as the darkness flowed around them in a wide circle to their left. They followed it as if drawn by strings. Behind them, on a rock that definitely had not been there when Yahiko had stood in that spot, sat the boy. He sat cross-legged and attentive, looking just like an eager school child. One of many things that were wrong with this image was the fact that his arm was missing. Konan's and Yahiko's eyes met his after the darkness flowed onto his left shoulder and condensed, taking the shape of the missing arm.

"Hi-hi," the boy followed up. After they failed to respond, he uncrossed his legs and waved them back and forth in the air. "Aw, no thanks?"

Yahiko blinked, and his expression of horror mostly faded. "You...you're that demon boy we were told about." The boy nodded and chuckled. "You made that deer?" He nodded again. "Uh...thanks…?"

Konan felt like crawling away somewhere and hiding. _Oh gods. It's reversed. I thought I could protect him from the demon, but really the demon protected him from…_ Her stomach issued a quiet complaint, a faint echo of complaints she only now remembered from the previous night. _Me. _It was all wrong. And confusing. Her head started to hurt, and her eyes lost focus. Her hand tingled and sparked all up her arm. She lifted it up and sucked on reopened wounds without noticing. Her stomach quieted.

The demon boy looked at her and put a hand on his chin. "Hmm. I see, I see. You search for answers and find none. I hear your plea, and I...do absolutely nothing!" He giggled and clapped his hands. "Man that was awesome! You just tackled him like that, and then fought with yourself like that, and then the deer like that, and there's going to be a lot more of that kind of stuff before you can stop it. So cool! This is like…" He rubbed his hands together and said nothing. "I'm not gonna tell, because then you might get comfort and it wouldn't be authentic. Yeeee!"

Yahiko stared at the boy with mouth agape. "You _like _this? You can help, but won't? Even though...why?"

"More interesting this way," the boy flippantly replied. "I mean, imagine if someone who all the characters believed and trusted just gave them all the answers in the first five minutes of a horror movie and they all did the smart thing and the monster was dead by the ten minute mark. Bad moviemaker. Bad! This might be _your _life, but it's _my _movie, so I'd better direct it like a good director should."

Yahiko raised a finger to object. "You're talking right here with us."

The boy lost his smile. "Yeah, but I know all kinds of things you don't, and can do all kinds of things you can't, and there's almost nobody who knows or does the same things. I'm not really here, not like you are. We're not really here together. I'm not really anywhere." He crossed his legs again. "So since I get to look in from the outside, it's like a movie. Like that puppet guy can see other people being lovey dovey as a romantic movie. I'm not here."

Yahiko's face softened, and his eyes moistened. "Nobody? Not even the other demons like the one we found in town?"

The boy waved a hand. "Different kind. Those are all mythological demons that people invented, so they're all limited by human minds. They can't do anything and are pretty bad. I haven't bothered visiting The Hive for like years now."

Konan's wandering mind picked up "The Hive" and carried it over several continents. "The bar?" she asked. Okay, maybe it was only one continent, since they were still around the general area of what had happened to Hidan a couple days ago.

The boy nodded cheerfully. "That's what I call it!"

Yahiko's jaw dropped. Konan muttered, "That explains why it's so popular." The boy made a checking off motion.

Yahiko refocused on his previous point. "Can't you move somewhere where there are others? Do you not have a home?" He really seemed determined to avoid the implications of what the boy had just told them.

The boy was suddenly upside down in front of Yahiko's face. "I'm not gonna tell you everything," he chided. Then he was on Yahiko's back as if ready for a piggyback ride. "But I will tell you that I'm not going to tell you how to beat her, either. There is a way, but it's more fun if you figure it out."

Then he was in position to wrap his arms around both their waists. "Soooo, who wants to give the tour of my people zoo?"

**Yahiko**

Konan led him inside. "The first stop on this tour he's making us go on," she explained, "is here." She pointed to the lobby desk where the intake forms were. "This renegade decided it was a good idea to break the rules and operate without a body," she stated. "See how he's not even trying to get one. He'll be punished for that eventually, regardless of what Hidan says."

Yahiko saw several pages flip as if someone was looking through the forms. _Ghosts? _He paled and became short of breath. _Ho-how many ghosts?! _He looked around anxiously. He saw nothing, but that didn't mean anything. He looked back at the door. He looked away, tried to calm himself, but a whimper escaped before he could.

Konan stared, impassive and blank. How could she go from a few minutes ago to that? Yahiko stilled his trembling hands. "I...I don't like the thought...of...of being...watched," he explained. _Why ghosts? _

She turned away. "He calls this place a zoo. That implies enclosure, as does every ghost story I've ever heard. They won't be sneaking home."

Yahiko was almost reassured, until his jerkbrain piped up with _Unless he asks them to! _That was a real possibility, after everything the demon boy had said. _Oh no. _Yahiko took deep breaths and mourned the loss of all the sleep his future might have held.

Konan gestured for him to follow and led him to the stairs. "I can't give you a full tour," she explained for the benefit of any listeners, "only a tour of the places I went when Hidan and I visited."

Yahiko tried to stand as straight as he could and show as little fear as he could. _Everyone would laugh at me if they saw me freaking out like this. _He was able to gesture calmly with his hand, and speak with only the slightest wavering. "The stairs aren't there."

Konan nodded. "Indeed they aren't. Fortunately, Hidan had full control over his chakra and was able to carry us both up the stairs by way of the wall."

Yahiko's task got easier as his success instilled further confidence. "Ah, so, you taught him how to climb things with chakra before you taught any of us?" he joked.

Konan stopped. She tilted her head. "No." She looked up the stairwell. "I don't remember telling him that chakra could be used in that way. All I said was that I could avoid the stairs, if only I could use my chakra. He never asked about what I would use it for. He just invited me to ride on his back."

Yahiko avoided fiddling with his hair as he thought. "Maybe he accidentally found out he could do that, like I did, and didn't tell anyone," Yahiko suggested.

"Maybe," Konan murmured. "He also raced me by using his chakra to grip and push off pavement just before that. That is rather specialized, but maybe it was reflex. It's a possibility."

Yahiko shrugged. "So, up?" That was where they went, both separately this time. Yahiko was glad he didn't have to give her a ride, and she didn't have to give him one. _Wait, why couldn't she use her chakra that time? And what did Hidan say about the ghost? _

He asked when they reached the top of the stairs. Konan paused to remember. "It's difficult to remember. I tried to scout the building using my butterflies, but I could feel my butterflies being taken from me, the jutsu being ended without my doing so. I flew Hidan around to investigate, but something about the hospital scared me. No, more than that. I became disoriented, couldn't fly. My chakra fell apart. It was like there was an aura of panic coming from the building."

Yahiko looked around. "Well, we were invited this time, so he'll make it a better experience. Right?"

"He'll make it a more interesting experience, whatever that means. I think my caution was boring him, so he had to break past it."

Yahiko wished he'd kept his mouth shut. _Oh god I shouldn't have said that I was afraid of being watched. _But… _Oh god, he would have known anyway. He knew why I was here and I didn't even say anything. _Yahiko prayed she would say something, break him out of this moment.

"As for what Hidan said, he had the audacity to claim that being bodiless was an acceptable lifestyle choice as long as it didn't hurt anyone. How can any respectable person think that?" She shook her head disapprovingly. Yahiko focused on that. Anything to avoid thinking about being surrounded by ghosts. Hordes and hordes of eyes watching his every-

"So why did Hidan think that?" Yahiko blurted.

Konan sighed. "Who knows? He'll believe any crazy thing. It's just ridiculous to exist in a world full of bodies and not have one. There are bodies out there right now, decaying, without anyone inside them. So wasteful."

"Well who wants a broken house?" Yahiko continued. _How many? A giant mansion sized house...several in every room...how many rooms? _

Konan paused, then shook her head. "Not necessarily the case. There are plenty of new bodies that are perfectly intact, but don't get anyone assigned to them. It makes no sense."

"Okay, and nothing else makes any sense either, so how many ghosts are there in this place?" Yahiko flubbed his efforts at subtlety. "And can we see them somehow?"

Konan glared at him. He saw her hands tighten. _Uh oh. _She did not move, just continued to glare at him. Yahiko thought he was going to lose control of his bladder if she continued to glare like this. Just before he would have, Konan spoke. "You are not afraid of what you should be afraid of," she whispered in a tone that indicated it was some kind of shameful personal fault.

Yahiko swallowed, a difficult task. "So, what should I be afraid of?"

Konan turned away. "What you did earlier was a good start. You should fear for your life more often. Try to develop some skill in that direction, will you?"

Somehow Yahiko did not think that this was the best time to bring up the value that was placed on bravery and self-sacrifice. He kept his mouth shut and followed her down the hall to the right.

Konan walked ahead to the far side of the first door and motioned for him to look in. "This is the first room where I looked for Hidan." Yahiko wondered how long it had taken her to look for Hidan in this mess. The room was filled with cat toys and signs that said, "Take me!" He saw a stuffed tiger, shrugged, and walked in to take it. The door closed behind him as he walked back out.

Konan stared. "Where did you get that?"

Yahiko looked back. "It was on the pile and said, 'Take me.'"

Konan opened the door and looked in. The pile of cat toys was gone, as were the signs. The jungle leaf design on the ceiling was gone, replaced by recently repaired plaster walls. There was a bed. He ducked behind Konan as a matter of reflex when the depression in the pillow moved. Konan closed the door.

She said nothing as they continued. "This is the second room where I looked for Hidan," she eventually said. "This time tell me what you see when you look into it."

Yahiko looked in. "There's a bookcase," he told her, "and it is covered with a blanket. The room is filled with treasure chests. They're all asking me to open them."

Konan looked down at the stuffed tiger. "Go on." So he went in and opened a chest with a picture of a lamb on top of it. He heard whispers as it opened. _Good choice, little lamb, _they said. He claimed his prize and got the hell out of there. The door again closed as he left.

His prize was a smaller chest. Yahiko opened it to himself so only he could see, and immediately went white and slammed it closed. His arms shut like a vise around it. _Oh please don't let anyone have seen what's in there please no how does he know? _

Konan opened the door to reveal a room with a bookcase that was not covered by a sheet, and otherwise empty. "I think I understand now what he's doing," she muttered. "Which probably means he's going to change it for the next room."

The next room already had its door closed and a gift basket sitting outside. The handle of the basket was covered with barbed wire. Yahiko scratched his head with the arm holding the tiger. "What does _that_ mean?"

"It means it's for me," Konan answered. She did not provide any explanation for why she thought this. She did not need to, because Yahiko saw why she thought it was for her when she reached forward and, gripping the handle to lift it, said, "Wow. This is some good quality wire." Her blood dripped onto the wrapped package in the basket. _Okay, so she likes that. That's okay. I really hope there are no weapons in there. _He now knew that she was technically armed all the time, but that didn't have the same effect on his perception.

Inside the package was an instruction booklet. Konan opened it and flipped through the pages, growing increasingly confused. "It's empty." Then she flipped back to the very first page. "Except for this. It says: 'Sneak this under your brother in law's head when he's sleeping.' What the - I am not married to Hidan!"

Yahiko knew it might be a bad idea, but was unable to stop himself from laughing all the same. She glared at him, in a playful way this time, and retorted, "See how you like it when someone claims you're married to Nagato." That stopped his laughter almost instantly. Yahiko pretended it was just because he hadn't found that funny while she walked on. _Why would she say that? What does she know? _

The next room was festooned with decorative flowers, balloons, and a large sign with an arrow pointing to the open door that said, "Tools And Fools Emporium". Konan did not take a chance on passing the door, because she knew she would definitely look in, and stayed behind to take the toy and chest from Yahiko. He couldn't help but bounce forward. _What could he have put in here? _Yahiko's heart beat a little fast, but in a pleasant way as he looked inside.

There was a blatantly unnatural potted plant in the center. Not only was it all right angles, Yahiko also thought it might have been in 4 dimensions because he had trouble clearly seeing it. He didn't see just one plant when he looked at it, but multiple somehow, and all the versions he saw felt different, with some creating a feeling of anticipation, some a feeling of more distant hope, and others of recent and not so recent memories. He had not realized before that thinking of things at different times evoked different feelings, but understood that he had always felt differently even when he didn't realize it.

This realization was not his present. The potted plant was the center of a table, which seemed to be themed around the number 4. It was a 4 dimensional plant with 4-cornered leaves sitting on a table with a tablecloth patterned with number 4s overlapping each other, with 16 legs, all of which had 4 supports, and on top of the table next to the plant in a pattern that suggested the number 4 with the plant placed in the hole lay 4 bunches of white flowers, 4 flowers per bunch. Yahiko wondered just how far the demon's apparent mind reading powers went as he walked in. _How did he know 4 is my favorite number? _

His breath caught as he approached the table. Yahiko was suddenly assailed with the feeling that he was being watched from all directions, even ones that weren't possible. They saw his _soul. _And they judged it. He screamed.

Nothing happened. He screamed himself hoarse, then turned to the door. It no longer existed. Yahiko turned, trembling. The table was just as it had been before, except the tablecloth had a new design element. Some of the 4s in the middle of it formed an arrow shape. Yahiko ran in the direction of the arrow. _Oh god please no I don't want to be here get a grip I can't I need to get out of here!_

Konan tapped her foot impatiently. She'd been waiting for a good ten seconds, and he hadn't come out yet. Just then the door opened. Konan did a double take - when had it closed? She had no idea. Yahiko crawled out, hanging on to the doorway with both hands as he carried a something between his teeth. He smiled around it and made sure to stumble all the way out of the door before passing out. Konan went to check his pulse. He seemed to be alright physically, and his clothes were unharmed. But why was he covered with red, complementing a design of dark blues and greens on his back? She looked up at the door. What the hell had happened in there?

First she removed the disk from Yahiko's mouth. It contained a rolled note that said, "Congratulations! You have earned the First Royal Medal of the Lamb Division for your bravery and loyalty today." The other thing it contained was a soft dark red blanket that smelled vaguely of mint.

She looked up and peered as far around as she could. There was no sign of their host, though she heard giggles coming from behind the closed door. Konan looked down at Yahiko. He was fully and completely under. Looking like this, Konan couldn't see him taking action. The vision of him throwing himself on the kunai did not flash in her eyes. He looked just as beautiful as he always had before. She reached out and smoothed his hair gently back against his head.

He felt warm and comfortable as she carried him downstairs. Konan had forgotten she could be this soft and gentle. Their loot came along in a floating paper bundle. She smiled and, forgetting all about hunger, turned toward home.

**A/N: This was a lot of fun to write. And, contrary to what might be believed, I have no idea why the room is themed with 4s. It's my favorite number too, and they're not exactly Japanese anymore, not quite. It might be a room of death, or it could have been a really cool opportunity to write about what a 4 dimensional plant would look like. I don't have a coin to flip to find out. **

**Last chapter, I mentioned that Kakuzu might need reminding of exactly what kind of demon they have down the street. He could probably use some reminder that _this _one is very much not evil and not malicious.**

**If anyone wonders why Yahiko suddenly has a lamb motif, check the chapter title. I came up with animal motifs for everyone a long time ago, if they didn't already have one.**


	24. Hero

**A/N: It's taken a few hours of my time today to finish this. It was worth it. **

**.**

**Kakuzu**

After informing Deidara of Yahiko's actions and subsequently being hung up on, Kakuzu had a split millisecond in which to wonder how they were going to defeat the succubus now before a very large set of teeth clamped onto his leg and started pulling. He groaned and stood up. Samehada released his leg long enough to let out a sorrowful whine.

_Damnit. I was the one that told that airhead about Dei's idea. I suppose it could be construed as my fault that the shark's so unhappy now. I'd better do something so Kisame doesn't feed me to the rest of the tank alive. _He crouched down and patted Samehada's head. "Don't worry, I was exaggerating. I was just annoyed that Deidara had such a stupid idea and that Yahiko thought it was good." Samehada continued whining hysterically. "I lied," Kakuzu barked. Samehada stopped. _Finally. _"If I thought he was really in danger, I'd be chasing after him myself. I don't believe in death as punishment for childish stupidity."

Samehada wagged his body nervously and let out a questioning growl. Kakuzu sighed. "We'll go up front and wait for them. That demon kid owns that property. It's not our place to interfere." The shark reluctantly accepted this. _Here's hoping they get back quickly, or else he's going to panic again. _Lord knew the last thing Kakuzu wanted was a panicky shark.

A full five minutes later, Samehada was wriggling his way out of Kakuzu's arms as Kakuzu tried to keep him from leaping out onto the street. _Damnit, where are they?_ Kakuzu had to admit that he had been lying when he said he lied. Even saying he'd exaggerated was exaggerating. Truthfully, he was maybe about 60% sure that Konan had the self control to keep from hurting Yahiko too badly. Kakuzu was closer to 90% sure that she had the self control to keep from killing him, but he had no idea what shape Yahiko would end up in. He ignored his heartbeat and tried again to get a grip on Samehada. Samehada let out a cry and bit down, _hard,_ into Kakuzu's hand. _Shit. _Seeing what he'd seen of Samehada's gentleness over the past couple of days, Kakuzu interpreted that as Samehada being halfway to a heart attack.

"Nah, only 20%. He's a fighter!" chirped a high-pitched voice above Kakuzu.

They both glanced up to see a little boy in dark clothes perched horizontally out from the side of the building above the front entrance. The boy looked at Kakuzu and winked. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. What was he here for? And, if he was here, what had happened to Konan and Yahiko?

The boy raised a hand to wave. "Nah, they're fine. I sent them in to take a tour of my people zoo, since Lambchop hasn't seen it before, so they're busy now with seeing the ghosts. I'll go back and finish my surprises in a little." Then somehow he was on the ground next to them, petting Samehada. "Don't worry, Sammy. She wasn't going to kill him, and I gave her a deer so she wouldn't hurt him either. They're all fine now. He'll be sleeping when they get back, but she'll be in a good mood to play with you, okay?"

Samehada made a "Hah?" sound. This boy smelled like nothing, absolutely nothing. If Samehada couldn't see or hear him, he would not have known the boy was here. Cautiously he licked at the unfamiliar hand. It tasted of nothing, and made Samehada's tongue go numb and taste nothing too. He snatched his tongue back in a hurry.

Kakuzu sheltered the shark with his arms. "You're really here just to tell him that?" he questioned. _Yeah right. _The boy looked up with a wounded expression on his face. Kakuzu gave his best withering stare in return.

The boy crossed his arms and huffed defiantly. "Yeah!"

"Why?"

"It was important."

Kakuzu raised both eyebrows. The boy elaborated, "I told you what mood she'd be in when she got back, right? I couldn't explain to you why it was important if I wanted to."

_Superior knowledge does not grant someone the right to be an asshole. _But before Kakuzu could think of anything else the boy sprouted wings, zoomed straight up into the air, and set off down the street fast enough to create a sonic boom. They could do nothing but settle back down to wait.

20 minutes later, Kakuzu shook his head and tried to blink the vision away. He did not succeed. _Does that mean I'm not hallucinating? _That seemed unlikely. He had two options: either he was hallucinating, or Konan was carrying Yahiko back to the hotel gently, as if she cared greatly about him. Occam's Razor dictated that he had to be hallucinating.

Konan paused as she came up to Kakuzu. Shifting Yahiko's weight toward the paper straps she had on her back, Konan stared at Kakuzu. "How have you two been?" she asked, before resuming her walk into the base. Samehada followed her in almost at her heel. Kakuzu stayed back to hold the door open for her mysterious paper bundle, then followed.

She went to the right hallway and turned right into the sunroom. Kakuzu noticed the knocked-over chair for the first time and stood it upright. The paper straps came in handy for handling Yahiko as she laid him softly onto the chair, because even if she was strong enough to carry his weight, he was still bigger and bulkier than her. The paper bundle floated in, settled to the ground, and merged onto the floor before disappearing. Kakuzu raised his eyes at the miniature treasure chest first, then looked at the rest. A stuffed tiger - Hidan would go crazy and hyper for that. Several sheets of paper stapled together like a children's school project - okay. The mysterious disc-shaped thing was the most perplexing. But never mind that.

Samehada reared up as Kisame had mentioned, and put the side of his head against Yahiko's chest. He let out a very relieved growl and licked Yahiko's face afterwards. It seemed the demon boy hadn't been lying after all. Yahiko did not appear to have a single mark on him, though a really small injury could have been concealed beneath the bizare streaks of red all over the front of his body. But if something had happened, Kakuzu did not think Konan would have left _small_ marks.

_Speaking of…_ He turned and addressed her cautiously. "You seem to be in a good mood."

Konan smiled gently and reached out to smooth Yahiko's hair back. "I am. Look at him. He's healthy, but entirely unconscious. He looks so harmless in this state."

Kakuzu looked between her and Yahiko several times. _Harmless? _Another piece of the puzzle was made clear in his mind, though how it fit with everything he'd seen before was impossible to determine. "Is he usually not harmless?"

Konan's face went blank again. "Yes." She did not elaborate. "Do not open the treasure box. The instruction booklet was a gift of some kind left for me, and the others were left with Yahiko. I have a feeling from the way he reacted that it was meant to stay with him, where the others are possibly for other people. He wouldn't want you to open it."

Kakuzu cursed her blankness. _She dislikes him because he's dangerous? But to who? He can't possibly be dangerous to her. In fact he dislikes fighting at all. What kind of dangerous does she mean? And what is chasing after or avoiding him supposed to do about it? _

He did not reveal this boiling mass of questions out loud, and Konan did not answer them. Instead she scooped up Samehada. Before he knew it, the shark found himself in her arms. He stiffened. Her chakra smelled less harsh than usual. Samehada thought she seemed to be in a good mood. Before he could make up his mind whether or not to be afraid, Konan asked, "What have you seen of training so far?"

Samehada let out a questioning growl. She smiled. "Well then…" she murmured, looking to Kakuzu. _Dammit. _"It's time you saw, isn't it?"

It was almost exactly what Kakuzu had thought of that morning when he told Kisame that this setup was perfect. _It might be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. _Still he followed her out to the backyard, leaving Yahiko to doze peacefully on the soft chair.

**Sasori**

"What do you mean by that?" Sasori asked. He was beginning to think they were better off disconnecting phone service entirely. Every time they called back to the base today, some news came along that wrecked his good mood.

Deidara tried to breathe deeply. "No, it - it might be okay, yeah. Kakuzu said that Yahiko thought my idea sounded good, so he went to talk to the demon kid himself, and then Konan chased after him. Hidan didn't make it sound like we should be terrified of the kid, right? And Konan wouldn't do anything serious, like put him in the hospital or kill him or anything, yeah. It'll be okay."

Laurie's eyes darted around. "Who are those people?"

"Others in the club," Sasori answered. "Konan's the one who broke into my house, and Yahiko and Kakuzu are two other guys she recruited the sasme day as me. She has some problems with Yahiko."

"Hidan's trustworthy," Deidara continued. "He told us about the demon boy down the street, and I'll take his word for it if he says the demon boy isn't something to worry ourselves to death about, yeah."

Sasori's eye twitched. He stood up, caught their attention, and asked Deidara to turn his phone all the way off, smash it if need be, just don't talk with anyone back there from now on. Deidara opened his mouth, closed it, and complied. They both had seen Sasori's eye twitch again as he said this, so all argument was halted.

Sasori watched Deidara turn his phone all the way off and disconnected the landline from its line. Only then did he let out a sigh and sit back down. _I'm going to have a headache later. _"Whatever happens back there, they can deal with," he proclaimed. "I'm not going to allow it to intrude on my business here."

Deidara nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So… We should do something completely different then, yeah?" His eyes fell on Laurie. "So what do you two do here, hm?"

Laurie blushed. "Not much," she whispered. "I get yelled at all day, for the most part. This is like the first good day I've had since I started working here. I know I should stand up for myself more, I know. I...don't know why I can't."

Dei hadn't expected to get into such personal stuff. Thank goodness for Sasori, who walked up to stand beside her. "There has to be a point to it, maybe," Sasori surmised. "Dei keeps telling me I should stand up for my rights too, report him for keeping us past normal working hours and things like that. I don't because I don't consider that to be a worthwhile cause. You seem nice, like a lot of workers I've read about who take too much abuse. Maybe you need to have some reason besides your own comfort to do it."

Laurie chewed her lip. "Well, but, I'm not a doormat or anything. I know how to say what I want. I just…"

"Don't care quite enough," Sasori finished. "That's fine. It's not doormat-like."

She looked up to meet his eyes. "You think so?"

_Pretty sure I'm squishing the definition of doormat a lot to get it to not include that, but it won't help her to think bad things about herself._ "Yeah. And some good has come out of this. I've got many hours of audio recordings of his beautiful voice that I could edit together and post to comedy websites. I could never gather that material myself because he knows yelling doesn't work on me. That's not nothing."

Laurie stared open-mouthed at him. "That's...you...does he know?"

"No." Sasori continued to use only his flattest tone of voice. "You're a very good participant. I wouldn't include any parts where you spoke because that'd be irrelevant, but there aren't any such parts. Thank you for leaving it all unspoiled. Do you mind if I post it to Youtube when I'm done editing it together?"

Laurie's open mouth was stretched upward as she started to laugh. "That would be pretty...wow. No identifying details, okay?" She shook her head no as she spoke and waved at him to go on.

"Of course not." Sasori allowed himself a smile. She was laughing hard enough for tears to come out of her eyes, now. _I did that. Nice to know someone appreciates my sense of humor. _And to think that just a couple minutes ago she'd been ready to shrink into herself with self-doubt. Sasori felt a strange warmth, cousin to the warmth he felt upon completing a project, spread in his chest. _Is this a worthy cause? To get him to stop… _

Deidara looked around the room again and shuffled his feet. He was reminded strongly of his own past. He knew that there were some things that, when people went through them together, could make instant bonds out of strangers. He'd thought that military life was special for having those experiences. Perhaps not. He was very conscious of not belonging.

Sasori stepped back. _Oh… He doesn't really know our boss, does he? _He walked over to Deidara next. "She works the front desk, usually. It's the way you came in. My space is the other way, down there." He pointed out the door, to the left. "I assume you wanted to know for some kind of group bonding?"

"Oh...yeah," Deidara answered. "I thought that was better than going over all the other stuff, hm. So, I met Sasori after he kind of saved my life, hm. My car exploded. I was, um, being kind of stupid there. I had explosives in the seat next to me, and they were pretty unstable, so when I had an accident they went off. It was really cool!" His eyes glittered with remembered joy. "Or, well, I thought it was then."

Sasori interjected, "He was a really dumb kid back then."

"Hey! ...Actually, I kind of was. I had no idea how to make it properly so it would only go off when I wanted, hm. But yeah, so, my car was hit and went spinning sideways like _this,_ and I jumped out and went down the side of the road like an action movie star, and then I saw Sasori running towards me just before it all went off, yeah, and he covered me and took most of the blast wave. He's actually really heroic, yeah!"

Laurie looked between them. "Seriously?"

Sasori nodded. "Yes. That happened. I was thinking before that of why I was at that park, and I thought maybe I was hoping for something interesting to happen. That wasn't _quite_ what I had in mind."

Deidara elbowed him and snickered. Laurie looked at her new friend with respect. "That really _is_ heroic. How have I never heard about this?"

Sasori shook his head. "I confirmed it happened. I never said I was a hero. I'd rather not have that sort of life."

"You don't have to suck the fun out of everything, hm." Deidara elbowed him again. "I get you don't like screaming crowds or anything, but you can enjoy people talking about it here, yeah."

Sasori shrugged. "I just don't want people expecting everything of me. I don't know why I left the bench, and I don't think I'll do it again. I'm pretty sure we're in some kind of fantasy story, but I'm not the main character. I've always felt bad for those poor kids in those stories. Leave me out of this."

Laurie came over and thumped him on the shoulder. "I still say you saved someone, and that's heroic. You don't have to be that kind of character to do something heroic, if you don't want."

"So, Deidara, any interesting war stories you feel like sharing?" Sasori conspicuously deflected.

"War stories?"

"Yeah, after I got out of school I joined the military, hm." Deidara scratched his head. His smile was fading despite his best attempts to keep it up. "I, uh, mentioned my interest in explosives and got into the unit that dealt with those. It was...4 years. Then I got sent home. I don't make explosives in my spare time anymore," he finished quietly.

Laurie hadn't expected to get into such personal stuff. "Oh."

"I did learn how to. Know the enemy and all that." He looked down at nothing in particular. "It was...I don't know. I like blasting, when... " He traced a circle on the back of one hand. "My feelings about blasting are still mixed. I saw some stuff, so they shouldn't be. I think they should be all bad, after that kind of thing. I'm kind of glad to be here." He looked back up at Laurie. "I never actually got discharged, hm. I think I just freaked out some people so they pulled strings to get me sent back home. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be asked back."

Sasori put a hand on his shoulder and said nothing. That seemed like a good thing to do, but he had a completely different kind of relationship with Deidara, and Laurie didn't think she could pull off that kind of steadiness anyway. She floundered for something appropriate to say or do. "That sounds good. I mean, you don't sound like you want to, so it must be good, right? At least it wasn't...crap, I mean…"

Deidara chuckled. "Konan told us about our originals, hm. If my original was there he probably would've gotten a dishonorable discharge, definitely. But I wouldn't have no matter what. I'm not crazy like that."

"Yeah, um…" She waved her hand around lamely. "How's it like to be home? Good?"

"Weird, hm." Dei looked down again. "It's okay, yeah."

Silence descended. Sasori lowered his hand and, after several seconds, opened the door as quietly as he could and went back to his little window to see if any more wheeled customers had shown up. _I can't believe I'm thinking about this. _There was nothing. He came back. Deidara had taken the water bottle, but didn't drink from it. He held it horizontally and pushed it back and forth, watching the water splash against each end.

"Hey Deidara, speaking of our originals, remember what she said about mine?" They both looked at him, relieved. "She said mine used puppets, and controlled them with strings." Deidara nodded. "Guess what that means for my hand to hand fighting?"

Deidara smirked. "Well, if your hands are all tied up, it doesn't sound very good."

Sasori narrowed his eyes. "No, Dei. It means I am utter crap at fighting with my hands. You have to be better, at least a little. Come on. You challenge her. I will give you an entire bottle of soda that I bought earlier today if you are miles ahead of me already."

Neither Deidara nor Laurie could identify what it was in Sasori's voice that made what he said so funny, but there had to be something to make them both laugh. Deidara agreed. Sasori stepped back and sat on the desk, watching. _Now there's two people who appreciate my sense of humor. _He swung his legs and wondered idly when was the last time he had felt such peace.

**Hidan**

A bird chirped sweetly, its song adding to the air saturated with sunshine and the flowers. A group of butterflies joined in, flitting around the bird where it stood on the large rock behind Hidan. A second bird joined. Hidan knew they were both blue without looking. He was most productive in such an atmosphere. One arm was completely covered with writing already, and he was making good progress down the other one.

_Okay, so… _Hidan paused and considered what else could be useful. He started writing again. He began to get worried when his second arm was three quarters covered. His smile lifted in anticipation, and then he dropped the pen. That hand contracted into a fist which he pumped up and down. "Yes!" The very last words just barely fit within his field of view of his own body. He looked up at the birds and grinned in victory. They continued to sing.

He looked down at all he had written, checking and double checking. _Yeah! This is what I need for her! _He could envision himself and Konan, her looking so joyful with her eyes aglow as they stayed up, laughing and working and breathing together, just the two of them. _Yeah. She's the only one…_ He knew he could steer her as she needed him to, as he wanted to, as he was going to. _I like making people happy. I'm going to make her so fucking happy. _

He went back to his little space and picked up the last few things of his from where he had left them. It was mostly just spare clothing. Hidan had left his cloak back in his room at the base, so he was free to put on two spare shirts. He wondered about the spare pants, socks, and the other pair of shoes.

The little dip he had settled in before Konan's arrival was now in shadow. Hidan looked up at the sun where its light stuck out around the side of a tree trunk. _I should wait til later. _He picked up the pants and shoes and went back to the rock, but the birds and butterflies were gone.

That was the last thing he remembered clearly before finding himself at the back door, blinking away the descending darkness.

**Konan**

Kakuzu was the most decent training partner of them all so far. But that wasn't far enough. Konan pressed him harder, maximizing her advantage over him in speed and agility. They fought with kunais in hand now, no longer simple hand to hand. Kakuzu was playing a defensive game, hedging his bets since he didn't know exactly what either of them were capable of. Konan grew very annoyed at that and summoned her paper to form weapons of her own devising. Kakuzu's eyes went wider, took in more of his surroundings. He increased his speed, got even more defensive. Konan was further irritated, and the cycle started again.

It got to the point where any judge taking down points in any examination held in her old world would have been slackjawed at the kind of maneuvers he was pulling. Kakuzu dodged a paper pike thrust, a wide kunai slash, and twisted away from a brutal kick all at the same moment. She felt like ripping him limb from limb. Sure, he could be considered the most decent sparring partner of them all, but that was only if he _**fought back.**_

She remembered that this version of him would only have one heart since he had never taken any more, and discovered a heroic strength within herself. Her energy was limitless in battle, but finite outside of it. Konan almost cried out in pain. Tears squeezed from her eyes and she got suddenly light-headed as she used up some of her last reserves of energy to back away from him to the other side of the backyard. Even there, the battle continued as she further held herself back from rejoining the fight and tried to calm down. It was exhausting, and her attention was too weak to hold any thoughts that could help her restrain herself, if indeed she had anything to think about that would help. She was on her own.

Kakuzu meanwhile sat heavily on the ground, leaning to one side in a very unbalanced way. He got the sudden impression that if he could have talked with his original, they would have found much to agree on. He thought of the things he was discovering about his original's fighting style. It seemed so far that he was good at - had spent the most time training - the skills he most needed and preferred. Kakuzu thought that perhaps some of his stitches were for actual wounds. He was covered with scratches. He did not have the trained reflexes to avoid all harm, but when he knew he needed to he could avoid major damage. That was what he most wanted.

Konan felt her battle urge subsiding somewhat, but she still growled under her breath. When Kakuzu's breathing had slowed to normal she exploded. "Your movements are counterproductive and pissing me off. Are you even interesting in actual training?"

Kakuzu wiped blood from a scratch above his eye and looked at her quizzically. "Yes. What the hell do you mean, 'counterproductive?' I had no idea I was that good at- "

"You demonstrate no attack skill whatsoever," Konan retorted. "If I wanted to scratch up something that would never hit back, I'd set up a training dummy. It angers me that you don't fight back. Dodging is excellent, of course. But did I ever specify what I wanted to train you in this time?"

"No, you didn't."

"That's right, I didn't. Of course I want something interesting then, not a demonstration of your best pussyfooting." Konan knew she was being unreasonable. It seemed like too much effort to care.

Kakuzu raced to decipher what she meant. "So, if you aren't training some particular skill, we should assume you're fighting to entertain yourself?"

That got her to stop and think. _Is that what I mean? _There was no other possible interpretation of her demand for something interesting. "Well, hmm. I...think so." _I should have told him then, before getting angry. _

"And entertaining you means attacking. So when you don't say you're training anything specific, we should assume you're looking for attack skills." Kakuzu wanted to make sure he had all this laid out and agreed to so she couldn't come up with any surprises.

"Yes." Konan felt rather foolish now. "My apologies. I should have said that beforehand."

Kakuzu looked at her closely. These periodic bursts of sanity were really throwing him for a loop, but he thought he was adjusting to better take advantage of them. "I'll tell everyone else. Anything more about your training style we should know about?"

Konan thought of past sparring sessions and how they went. "If you do not show your abilities in what I wish to train, I seem to get quite angry. If you do, I get very excited and eager to fight. In either case the force and speed of my attacks increases as a session goes on, and I can't imagine any way to stop this short of taking a break."

Kakuzu stopped himself from saying something rude at the last minute. "So you're saying that if I dodge instead of attacking like you want, I have to dodge harder, but I would have to do that anyway if I did attack like you want? Doesn't sound like much benefit to me."

"Well," Konan tried to explain, "if the increased pace is because I'm excited it's much easier to stop or slow down if I see or am told that the pace is too much. It would not increase at the same rate or in the same way, either."

Kakuzu knew he could have understood this if he was not irritated by the seeming hypocrisy, but it was hard to at this time. "Fine. Let's go, then. I'll see what I can do and I'll see for myself what the difference is."

Hoo boy, was it a difference. Kakuzu thought to harden his skin this time against slashing attacks, but Konan did not use so many slashing attacks. As he flew at her, she beat him away with cudgels and poles of paper that formed out of nowhere. Once she caught his body in paper wings and threw him backwards. When she pressed him in return, she came at him with more of the same. Kakuzu was forced to drop the skin hardening technique, but only took a few scratches from the kunai she still held and the occasional paper shuriken. For the first time he realized that, like her thinking and general acting, her fighting was also very different between when she was not in her full senses and when she was. When she was, she was much less determined to claw him to shreds.

He stepped back to recover, and she allowed him to. He nodded. "I see what you meant. You keep more of a distance and use blunter methods like this."

"Yes." Konan was relieved for more than one reason. Even she hadn't realized how different it felt. She'd been worried. "Thank you." Kakuzu asked what she was thankful for. He hadn't noticed that she considered him the best to fight with. His reaction puzzled her. _Is he pleased or worried? I really can't tell. _

Kakuzu squinted suddenly. "Sun's getting low. It's shining right into my eyes." He pulled out his phone. "Damn. We've been out here for a long time. Hours."

Konan looked at the sun to check. Yes indeed, some time had passed. The shadows were noticeably longer than when they had started. She wondered about that. It seemed like only one hour, or less. _I'm losing track of time again. _She thought of her first day in this world when she had thought the same thing. It seemed like eons, not days. That many eons ago… _The road. It's slick. _She remembered, too, the road. The car. The image she had seen in her mind's eye of the car turning over. It almost didn't seem as if that had been her who'd stood there and wondered if she had that control. Then again, when she'd been wondering about what this strange new world was she hadn't felt very connected to her own past self immediately after Yahiko died. Konan now recalled just what that had been like and felt very connected to her past self from after Yahiko died. _Oh gods. I…_ What about her? She couldn't finish that sentence.

She wondered what that turning over felt like. Did it hurt? How much? For she now saw everything that had changed within the last couple of days, and knew for certain the answer to that earlier question. No, she did not have that control. She was very certain now that she would lose her way and be destroyed. Her heart beat fast, but it didn't feel as much like fear as it should have. _That's been coming for a while. _

Samehada had gone to sleep while she and Kakuzu rested. Now Samehada erupted into wild growls and squeals that jerked Konan out of her reverie. She turned and saw Kakuzu rolling his eyes, but not so secretly enjoying the shark's attempt at wild applause. He went inside and Samehada followed, an adoring fan. Konan brought up the rear.

By the time she had sat down in the kitchen to think some more, she no longer remembered exactly what she had been thinking about. _It had something to do with cars. I wonder who that man was that cut his hand on the door of his? _"I'm going to go get the fridge from my place," Kakuzu mentioned.

"Yes, of course." _That man...he reminded me of Hidan with his vocabulary…_ Where was Hidan? Konan realized she hadn't seen him all day. She wondered if he was safe. Perhaps he was out getting supplies or making some sort of plan. Either way she had no doubt he would return. _Hidan…_ This version of him was certainly very loyal, and had a much more constant level of sensibility. _I can see myself following him, helping him, and he doing the same for me. _Her shoulders relaxed and heartbeat slowed. _He's a solution to a great many things._

Her thoughts wandered from there. She wondered about the laptop, but wandered away from that too before she could seriously consider getting it. _Training programs. Especially for Yahiko. How to teach jutsus of different elements? I don't know many of them. The instruction booklet. The tiger. The blanket. Blanket? Where did he get those? Are they real? They have to be real; we've left the demon's domain and they still exist. They must be made of real materials, not his darkness. I should check on Yahiko. _The feeling of warmth and tenderness helped fix her thoughts on that. She went to check on him, hoping that he was still asleep.

Yahiko seemed to be in normal sleep now. His eyes twitched back and forth. Konan gently lifted him so she could sit with him. His head nestled in her lap. He had a smile fixed on his face. Konan wondered what was in the chest. Whatever it was, it had made Yahiko very uncomfortable. And very possessive. She thought back to what she remembered of his original. What would Yahiko have held strongly to, but keep as a secret? Something nobody else saw. Konan remembered. _Not nobody. I was the only woman around, and we were lovers. He trusted me with some things I don't think he would have ever told Nagato about. _One of those things stood out in particular. The chest wasn't large enough to hold _that,_ but she could think of some related products that would fit. Konan sighed. No matter how beautiful he was now, she hadn't seen it in him before, and hadn't treated him that well before. He wouldn't take it well if she told him she knew. She'd have to earn his trust over again.

Unseen by her, Yahiko's eyes stopped twitching for a second. Then a couple of seconds. The back of his neck prickled. The warmth of her leg and the feel of her hands absentmindedly running through his hair beckoned. His eyes blinked open. Both sensations were absolutely foreign to him. "Huh?" he whispered.

Konan looked down and met his eyes looking up. They stared at each other for a couple seconds while Yahiko realized where he was and what she was doing and Konan realized that he wasn't looking so harmless anymore. Her heart beat faster with some faint anxiety. _I'm pretty sure it's just anxiety, at least if he stays lying down like this. _Yahiko opened his mouth but said nothing. He looked from side to side. "W-what?"

Konan ran her hands through his hair deliberately to keep him still. "You fell unconscious after getting out the door. I took you and our prizes home. They're right there on the floor beneath your head."

Yahiko couldn't look that far. "W-why are you petting me?"

Konan stopped and lifted him up so she could get away. "Nobody has looked in the chest. It's meant to be yours, correct?"

Yahiko sat up worried. "Yeah, but- I'm sorry, I didn't mean...If you want to pet me, I don't mind, exactly…"

Now that he was active she did not. "You won a commendation for your bravery. It's in the disc you retrieved."

He saw how futile it was to try to talk and sighed, looking down at the prizes. He picked up the disc and read the note inside it. "Why is he making all these lamb references? I'm not going to get sacrificed, am I?" Then Yahiko fell off the chair, curling into the fetal position and gasping for breath, heedless of the pain from hitting his shoulder on the chest. The wave of overwhelming feeling coming from Konan was too strong. He felt as if he was going to drown in it. He bit back a scream. Then a wall slammed down, blocking it all off. He let all his breath out, surprised not to see it in the air since he felt so cold. He pushed himself up with shaking arms and sat back on the chair, panting. Konan was still the whole time. Too still.

Eventually his concern that he was having a heart attack diminished. "Okay, bad thing to talk about," Yahiko murmured. "So...who's the other stuff for? The chest is for me, and the instructions were for you, and I thought Hidan would like the tiger. That leaves the blanket."

Konan was silent for a while before she was able to speak. "I don't know." _Why? Why sacrifice? _

Yahiko fiddled with his hair. "I guess we should just offer it up to whoever wants it, then."

Konan nodded. "Purpose. Each item is meant for something. Why was that the top prize?" With all the ornamentation around that doorway, there could be no doubt that it was. But what could a blanket do?

Yahiko held the blanket. "It's really soft. And it smells like mint. I don't know anyone here who likes mint. But it's not like we've talked about things like that."

_Which of those is important? Is the blanket important at all? No, it has to be. But to who? And when? The boy delights in short term pleasures, if Hidan's comments are anything to go by. What is it going to do in a few days, at most? Or is it to be used for something? _Her mind spun. Everything she was thinking about seemed tremendously important and also not important in the slightest. _What do lambs have to do with sacrifice, and why would that boy say that? _

Yahiko picked up the chest and held it close. "I'm, um, going to find a place to put this in my room." He looked back at her as he left, wondering what he had said and why she had reacted like that.

Konan praised her restraint and wondered where it had come from. The inner wall was still in place. She dared not move. _Sacrifice…_ Maybe her restraint wasn't praiseworthy just yet.

There was the sound of distant knocking. A few seconds later, it was followed by a loud yell that echoed through the halls. The wall was no longer necessary; Konan was able to move safely once more. Hidan was back!

He was fast enough to disappear into his room and throw on his cloak before they got there. He emerged straight into the arms of a very happy Yahiko. "Aw, I missed you too, Sunshine," he mumbled as he hugged Yahiko back.

Yahiko drew away. "Where have you been? Nagato made it sound like something bad was happening. Are you okay?"

"Well, he was kinda right," Hidan started. "I wasn't ready so Konan's feelings swamped me earlier and it wasn't a good idea to be around her. But!" He pushed back just enough of his sleeve to show he had something written on his arm. "I got lists. That should keep us both on track for what I wanted to do later. And now I have you. You're sane, right?"

Yahiko nodded. Konan winced. _It wasn't a good idea to be around me? _It'd been bad enough to be nearly taken over by her own feelings. For Hidan… _Gods above. I'm sorry. _

Hidan turned next and wrapped her in a hug. This was more than just simple affection; this close, it was also a demonstration of trust. She froze, then hesitantly allowed herself to hug him back. Something flared inside, and she fought to keep it under wraps. Hidan squeezed the breath out of her for a second. "No, I hate that shit. It's my job to handle shit like this. Not yours to hold back. Don't." She let whatever it was come and was surprised to find it was a fierce joy that had her squeezing his ribs painfully in turn. He clutched his arms around himself and breathed a little shakily when they parted, but gave her a thumbs up.

Yahiko's eyes lit up and he dashed off in the meantime. Shortly after Konan and Hidan parted, he returned with the stuffed tiger. "Hey, we went to visit the demon kid down the street, and he gave us presents for some reason. I thought you would like this. It was in a room of cat toys." He held out the stuffed tiger to Hidan.

Hidan's eyes grew wide and glazed over. "That smell…" He took the tiger and held it close to his nose. "Catnip! Is there...any…?" He discovered a small pocket on the tiger, found the zipper for it and was rewarded with a few leaves. He reflex purred while chewing them. When he eventually swallowed the leaves he resembled Yahiko in the way his face shone clear of concern. He hugged the tiger next, squeezing it to his chest and rocking it back and forth. "I love it! Hey little guy. I am going to love you and squeeze you and call you Hobbes."

Kakuzu snorted. He stretched his fingers, grateful in some ways for the reasonable excuse Hidan had provided for him to put down the small refrigerator to see what was happening. "How original."

"I think it's a great name!" Yahiko exclaimed. He walked over to Hidan and looked hopeful. Hidan nodded. Yahiko absorbed himself in petting the toy tiger's head.

"Hey, Hobbes was _awesome_. Just my sort of guy!" Hidan replied. "Even all that lovey-dovey shit. I've been known to do that sometimes myself. That's his name and I'm sticking to it."

"Who is Hobbes?" asked Konan.

Hidan explained, "He's this awesome tiger in a comic strip I've read where this kid and his stuffed tiger have adventures, and he's always funny and makes jokes about the kid yet he's really smart too. Just like me!"

Kakuzu's indrawn breath was audible. That was _the golden opportunity _that almost every member of the group who wasn't here yet would have killed to have. Kakuzu knew he would have to take it up for all of them or risk a gauntlet of angry glares later. "Citation needed," he grumbled. That would have to do on such short notice.

"Hey!" Hidan took it in exactly the way Kakuzu had been weakly aiming for. "I have too shown I can be smart! Do you see anyone else making up supplies and plans for the training rooms? Who else is...um…"

Kakuzu started laughing. Hidan found something he could use. "-persuading people to do something this weird? Yeah, I know, Konan was, but she'd be sunk for most of you if I hadn't said anything, and we all know it. I am pretty awesome," he concluded.

"Yeah, yeah." Kakuzu was glad he'd have something to report. "I just had to say it, because you know I would have been crucified if anyone found out I'd let such an opportunity pass."

"Fuck yeah," Hidan raised his hand in a fist bump. "That was some upper shelf shit for last minute notice. Glad to help."

Konan looked between them, furiously taking mental notes. "Is group mockery and joke-making some kind of bonding ritual in this world?"

They all backed up and stared. Yahiko was the first to ask, "I...don't really think that's world specific. Where did you grow up in your world? I thought finding something to laugh about together was universal." Hidan nodded.

"Well, I never had a lot of other people around me until I was almost fully grown," she started. _Wait, why am I telling them all this? They don't need to know such personal details. _"But never mind that. Even so, I had- " A lightbulb went off behind her eyes. "Ah, I see. I was just going to say, I did play fight with my companions a lot in training. Perhaps the verbal equivalent works just as well."

Kakuzu tilted his head, tried to see the world from that point of view. Her comparison did make a kind of sense, from a certain angle. "Meow," Hidan agreed, swiping at Konan's ear. She ducked her head and tapped him on the nose. Yahiko was staggered at the amount of everything Hidan's presence took off his shoulders. The mood was lighter, Konan's attention was lighter, everything was lighter. He looked at Kakuzu, pointing back to Hidan, then to Konan. Kakuzu nodded and looked thoughtful.

Hidan then told them all about this awesome rock he knew of in the woods, and how peaceful it was (with special emphasis on how "the Disney prince" would like it, which caused Yahiko to redden slightly), and what he'd been up to all day. "And I have no fucking idea where to stop, so I'm not gonna," he declared. "Hey chestnut!"

"What? A fridge? How…?" came a low voice back up the hall. Kakuzu went back to finish his work, taking the heavy insulated box from the ground before Deidara's amazed eyes. "Oookay." Before Deidara quite finished reacting to that, Hidan was punching him in the arm.

"I said hey, dickface."

"I'm not a chestnut," Deidara replied lamely. Then he shook his head. "But I am sent here kind of in advance, yeah. We've had all phones turned off for half the day since every time we called someone back here, there was some kind of disaster that ruined Sasori's good mood. He asked me to go ahead and find out if there's anything new, hm."

Hidan got a confused look on his face. "Nobody's hurt bad, Yahiko visited the demon down the street and got a bunch of presents, and Kakuzu finally got us a place to put food. What bad news was that?"

Kakuzu dropped the fridge in the corner with a clunk and left it there. "I can't believe it just occurred to me," he said, while glaring at Hidan as if to say he knew _exactly _whose fault it was, "but how did the quest go? Did you ask him how to kill others of his kind?" The last was directed down the hall to Yahiko.

"Actually," Yahiko said in a quiet voice, "He's lonely. He doesn't think that there are any others of his kind anywhere around. They might all be called demons, but he said he's a real one, and the others were all made up by people or something, so nobody is like him. But he still didn't tell me how to defeat a succubus. Said it was more fun not to."

"Others?" Deidara asked.

"Oh, yeah… He said there are a lot of those kinds of demons. They like to hang out at the bar, which he calls the Hive," Yahiko explained. He wondered if he was being helpful, or overly so. Should he have not said all that? How much was too much?

"That's the kind of bad news I was sent here to handle before they could ruin Sasori's day, hm." Kakuzu was suspicious when he saw how the blonde did not seem to care about the news beyond that. Maybe he was just saving it for later. "Any other news like that?"

"There's been a lot of news I haven't mentioned over the phone," Kakuzu said, "but not any further lifeshattering revelations that I know of." Yahiko shook his head no. Deidara didn't think there was too much Konan could have come up with by herself, so he left to go tell Sasori the good news and one piece of bad.

Meanwhile, other people came back. Itachi held up his hand when they tried to tell him things. "You and Kakuzu have spent the entire day helping Konan learn more about a possible enemy that nobody knew anything about last night," he reminded Yahiko. "Save it for some larger meeting. It's too much."

Hidan settled for showing everyone his present and chatting about how Hobbes was so nice, he'd even brought catnip, etc. In this way nobody noticed time passing before Kisame returned. He was breathing a little fast, which made sense, considering he must have raced through things to get back this early. Samehada wriggled into his arms making all kinds of cheerful noises, and he relaxed somewhat. He pushed through them to interrogate Kakuzu about how the day had gone, but before he could Konan spoke up.

"Everyone, go to the sunroom, now. Itachi was right, what we've learned should be shared with all at once. It's a lot." Kisame opened his mouth to point out the obvious, but Kakuzu elbowed him in the ribs and backed her up.

That meeting was...eventful. It was the first time anyone had mentioned to Konan that it felt _wrong _to think of a demon that detected and took advantage of something so private and personal. And to be separated based on that? Nagato hoped his heartbeat wasn't obvious against his pale skin, but luckily nobody asked why the proposed groups were set up the way they were. The room was filled with grumbles. Hidan settled them somewhat when he pointed out that he would be completely useless so he'd be kicked out of the fight entirely. Nagato felt heat rise in his face. Better it rise there than elsewhere, he thought.

Then Kisame asked what Kakuzu had kept him from asking earlier. "Shouldn't we have waited to talk about this until _everyone _was present?" Nagato shook his head and Kakuzu shot him a glare. Yahiko looked very uncomfortable, and Hidan saw all this and combined it with some other things he knew to come to the ultimate conclusion.

"How bad are things with you and Sasori?" he asked Konan. "I couldn't feel them like usual but I did feel that there _was _a burst of bad feelings from his general direction this morning, and now he wants advance warning just to step foot in this place. What happened?"

Konan considered. _If I downplay its importance, they could either accept that or be angered that I don't care. If I act very apologetic, it could increase the amount of blame I deserve and heighten the importance in their minds, but an apology is in order to prevent them from thinking I'm a complete monster. So...downplay, but not too much, and act just slightly apologetic as if I wish to leave the subject behind because I know how awful it is… _Then she had to make her best attempt to convey that all in a sentence or two.

"I was rather overstimulated by the beginnings of our research in the library last night, " she began, "so I made the very bad decision to break into his house and borrow his laptop when the library closed. The laptop's come to no harm, but he naturally takes offense to the general principle. Kakuzu told him this morning. He's had all day to think."

The silence was so deep they could have heard a pin drop. The sunroom was so deeply carpeted that Hidan sank a little into it, making this more of an accomplishment than it would have been in any other room. Nagato sighed.

Kisame was on high alert now. "And what does that mean for the rest of us?" he cautiously asked while holding Samehada tighter against himself.

Konan tried to come up with something reassuring, and failed. She tried to move past her block by thinking of something completely not reassuring, but also failed, to her confusion. "I will try to invest my energy in other things, and stay near other people," she said while reaching for Hidan's hand, "but aside from that I have no control over anyone else's actions, so I can't say."

Nobody was forthcoming with their reactions at this time. The sound of an engine cut through the silence. Konan rose, only now thought to pick up the disc with the red blanket, and left the room.

The red blanket was somewhat soothing as she waited by the kitchen door, but she knew it was not meant for her. Kakuzu crept out to go back to his room and retrieve the laptop. Konan waited. Her heart beat faster. It did not feel like fear. Her foot tapped against the floor as her mind raced through scenarios. _What will he say or do? What will I? _She couldn't wait to find out.

Deidara and Sasori walked in together. Konan looked at Deidara first and pointed to her left. "We just had a briefing. They can tell you all about it." He went across the hall to do so, with a worried glance back at Sasori. The engineer himself stood still, silent. He waited.

Konan waited too. It was only a few seconds before Kakuzu came back and handed Sasori his laptop. He said nothing during this exchange either, just tucked it under his arm and return to looking blankly at Konan. Kakuzu went back into the sunroom, where a hushed discussion could be heard starting, leaving them alone. Konan felt the urge to fiddle with her hands in the stillness, and remembered the blanket. She held it out as an offering. _Can the demon boy predict how we react with such accuracy as to foresee this? I hope so. _

Sasori took the blanket. For the first time his expression changed as he held it. A strange sadness came into his eyes. He walked away to the lobby.

The lobby was dark. Night had almost fully settled, though a faint gleam of orange still lurked behind the trees. Sasori put his laptop down onto the desk and ran his other hand through the cloth. It was so very soft. Though his hands were toughened, they responded just as much as a baby's might have. Sasori touched his cheek with the soft cloth. It was uniquely soothing. He held it in his hands and looked at the dark fabric in the fading light. How could Konan have known that the sense which affected him the most was touch?

Just by resting there it soothed him. It did not just rest there; he ran his thumbs over it. Tension left his shoulders. A faint smell of mint reached his nose. He remembered his grandmother's house clearly. She had a few things which smelled like that. He held the blanket close to his chest, almost protectively.

Konan lost the war with herself and walked out. He clutched the blanket tighter upon hearing her steps. She stopped at the very entrance to the lobby, leaving the desk and some distance between them. The wall came down inside, and she flattened and stood still. Stillness was preferable in the darkness.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "But it's all right." She stared out into the darkness, into the fading orange glow. "It shouldn't be. I should be agonizing now over the consequences of my actions, which are likely to cause some breakup in the group I wanted to gather. That should cause me pain now. But it does not."

Sasori listened. "I agonized before, when I still did not know anything of the world I found myself in. I agonized over the likelihood of convincing anyone of something so unlikely as magic powers. Then a thought occurred to me, which banished all doubt. It said that even if everything fell to pieces, I would still blaze onward. I was pushed forward, forward, and nothing, not even fear, was strong enough to stop me.

"That wasn't quite right. I have more need than most for other people, even just one other person. I know that the pain this feeling helps me avoid now will come back with reinforcements later, when I succeed and the people I want around leave. It doesn't make any sense to know that, and do this anyway. I'm not talking about my original sin; at the time, I had forgotten the possibility that you would be angry. I'm talking about now, and how I want to think of something persuasive, but I don't. I can't."

She moved up to get a clearer look at the fading light. "I was frightened when I first saw the road leading into town. It was so smooth. It demanded speed, and with speed comes a need for control. I saw in my mind's eye an image of a car I saw going by tumbling off the road, crashing into pieces. I'm not frightened. That seems like it would hurt, but- " she lifted her hand with the closed wounds from earlier, "pain sounds great now. Refreshing, like something I need. I could have a lot of fun."

She turned back the way she came. "So do whatever you want. I'm not about to pretend I'm a dictator and police your actions now. I'm not even in the mood to police my own. Look out for the succubus and stay safe, whatever happens." She stopped in the doorway. "Oh, right. I just now remembered you haven't heard yet. I spent all of last night on Wikipedia on your laptop. I found a description that matched everything I've heard of that woman's abilities. It seems that she was a succubus, a kind of demon that changes its sex. What this demon does is identify what sex its target is vulnerable to, and changes into the appropriate form. The demon has powerful hypnotic powers based in lust, so when the target sees it they will lose all resistance. By extensive physical contact like intercourse, it steals the target's soul."

Sasori froze. His arms dropped to his sides and hung loosely. Konan was not in position to see this and went on. "Since this group is mostly male and mostly heterosexual, there's very few people available who would be able to act if she appears in female form. The best I can do is divide the group in two, though that's unwieldy. The demon can't steal more than one person's soul at a time, but its hypnotic aura will work on any amount of people that it can. You might want to find a partner. Be safe." She didn't remember anything else he urgently needed to know, and left.

**Sasori**

_Dei sad I was a hero for saving his life. A hero, just because I was looking. They said I was allowed to do heroic things, even if I didn't want to be one. And now...I'm the only one...I'm the strongest here. I could be that for everyone. _

He turned back to look in the way Konan had gone, and the last of the tranquil darkness fell to snuff out the harsh light.

.

**A/N: My original idea was a vague "they fight a succubus at some point so that [spoilers] can happen for some plausible reason." That's it. I'm quite happy to see it line up so well with these events involving Sasori. Either my subconscious is very very smart and has excellent planning abilities, or the art of writing is just that, art. Art always has some significant element of luck in it. Actually, the thought Konan had in those first few chapters that went something like "everything's going to turn out all right no matter how it turns out" was directly borrowed from my own life. It's how things have always turned out.**

**Yes, the only reason this whole plot is happening is just because I wanted a plausible way to make something cool come about. What of it? Ah, i can't wait to see how it happens.**


	25. Whisper

**A/N: I am proud to celebrate an important milestone today: my first continuity error! I was rereading some older chapters (in order to prevent continuity errors, ironically enough) and saw that Kakuzu had actually had his stitches fully explained to him at some point. Whoops. Ah, I can't wait to see how I'm going to patch that together! It's just like that fun game we have where you get a bunch of really different things and have to make one story out of them all. So cool!  
**

**Merry New Year to everyone.**

**.**

**Deidara**

Dei's sleep was poor. He did not see Sasori after talking with the others, and retired to his own room with a great many questions in his head. _Is he okay? _was the first. It got more specific from there. After 2 hours of lying in bed with his eyes closed, but only with effort, Dei still found himself asking _What's going to happen now, hm? _over and over. Nobody else in the room had been very happy after hearing about Konan's crime. Kisame in particular seemed reluctant to let go of Samehada, not to mention anything else. Hidan's relentless cheer did little to calm him down, especially after Hidan started indiscriminately hugging people and talking past the topic about cool things he only half-finished explaining. He was able to bring himself back to reality after Nagato tapped him on the shoulder and Kakuzu glared, but Deidara doubted any dent could have been made in Kisame's mood even if that hadn't happened.

Kakuzu was being cautious around her from now on, and everyone else seemed mostly worried. Deidara couldn't be sure for who. He worried about Sasori. Laurie was great, but Dei had actually really enjoyed having more people around and involved. He thought Sasori did too. He hadn't mentioned it the previous day, but Sasori had mostly lost the thoughtful, hopeful look he'd gotten in his eyes after hearing about making puppets. Of course, Dei didn't even know what to think of Konan anymore. Dei now closed his eyes firmly and conjured up an image of the Big Bang, of something exploding and scattering. _Go away! I don't need to think of this now, hm. It's fine. Like Sasori says, whatever's going to happen will happen, yeah? _Yet the feeling he had of something about to fall apart remained. He thought of yesterday, of hanging out with Laurie talking about ninja things and problems and how to solve them. It had seemed pretty good back then. It was a long time still before Deidara got to sleep.

He dreamed about falling flat on the floor and woke up. _Ah! Wait...it's soft...oh, it's my bed. I was dreaming, hm. _Deidara was still helplessly paralyzed by desire not to move for another five minutes at least. Then the quiet sound of Konan's footsteps rushing past woke him up to full alertness, and Deidara remembered everything. _Damn, hm. _He swung out of bed, sat for a moment to let his blood flow adjust, then stood up and slowly walked to the door, feeling his way along the walls in the darkness.

There was the sound of eager whispers some distance away, then more quiet footsteps rushing in another direction. Deidara opened his door and peered out into the hallway, but saw nobody. He heard nobody as well. _What time is it? Doesn't seem like anyone's up…_

He turned and felt his way in the direction of the front of the building, where a faint glow seemed to shine on the floor. It was light. Deidara wondered what controlled the hallway lights, and where to find it, and if anyone would thank him for turning them on at this godforsaken hour. He decided against it.

Something moving fast brushed past. Deidara jumped as Hidan apologized, "Sorry," and went digging through the desk. Hidan looked up after a few seconds. "You know where any string is?"

"No." Hidan cursed and scratched his head, muttering about something he'd forgotten to write down and how he was going to have to go shopping for more. Deidara was intrigued. "Do I want to know, hm?"

Hidan stopped scratching. "I just had this cool as shit idea for how I could use my scythe, and it involves throwing, and I was thinking of something having to do with strings so I could get more precise and shit, but now we don't have strings. Fuck. I'm going to have to use really small targets for now."

Deidara hmm'd. "You want to throw your thing more precisely? What will that do, hm?"

Hidan crossed his arms. "I have my scythe, some skill with blades like knives and shit, and some ritual that I can't fucking use. So I could try knives and get better at that, or I could stick with my scythe and learn to use it for something that's not going to drive me insane. I like my scythe. I want to stay with it." The weapon under discussion peered over his left shoulder like Samehada did with Kisame. Deidara found himself staring at it suspiciously. The two visible blades gave away no secrets.

He wrenched his eyes back to Hidan's face. "How's Konan?"

The shirtless man smirked. "I've kept her busy all night, no worries. I even got her to eat and drink something."

Deidara sighed in relief. "What's going on with her, hm?"

Hidan's face went blank. "Watcha mean?"

"I mean… You'd know best, yeah. What should I think about her?"

Hidan scratched behind his ear, which twitched backward to offer a better angle. "I _don't_ know, actually. Something to do with her past, and she hasn't told me shit about that. I think if you want to stick around, you're gonna have to be patient, and watchful, and just more ninja-like in general. Take more training. But be careful; she brings her own weapons to that shit."

"And what if I don't want to do that?"

"Be a fucking civvy, then. Just think of her as something that might treat you nicely, or not, and you can't tell until it treats you however it will and you can't talk to it. Like a tiger or something."

Deidara felt himself smile, and wondered why. The answer occurred to him shortly. "Ha, I've never tangled with a tiger. But that sounds kind of like fun, yeah!"

"What were you just saying about tigers?" Konan asked from behind him.

Hidan bounced over to nuzzle her hair. "Deidara thinks you're a tiger."

"No, you-"

"I like that," Konan decided. "It's not quite right, but not so incorrect that I would mind. A tiger...symbol of grace, strength, and cunning...yes, that's acceptable. Will you be staying for training today?"

Dei blinked. "Ummm…" _What will Sasori ask of me? _"Maybe?"

Konan nodded. "You got some clay, right? We'll take it outside to the lake. Give us an hour."

They vanished. Deidara heard the fading echoes of Hidan lamenting the lack of string. He closed the drawers that Hidan had left open, then looked up to check on the sun. It was much brighter outside. Anyone on the side of the base where Sasori's room was would have to be awake or dead in this light. Deidara felt his guts sink as he thought _Maybe it should be where his room used to be, yeah. _

Deidara found himself walking in that direction. _We did get back late. Maybe he has some stuff I could pick up for him. _Deidara felt his face tighten. _At least he's still interested in this ninja stuff, yeah? It'll be fine. _

He stopped outside Sasori's door. Dei wondered why he was stopping. His hands clenched. His teeth clacked together painfully. He sucked on the first two fingers of each hand again and swallowed heavily. Out of reflex, nerves, and a weird tingle in his fingers, Deidara knocked on the door.

"What?" came a bland voice from the other side.

Deidara stood stock still for two seconds before grabbing the handle and throwing the door open. Sasori sat on his bed with his back against the wall, typing on the laptop. Dei's mouths fell open.

"You're - here?" he asked.

Sasori looked up at him. "Yeah." He looked past Deidara to the door. Deidara closed it and rushed over to sit on the bed next to him.

"I thought…" Deidara began. What had he thought? "You seemed pretty mad, yeah."

Sasori picked up a small red blanket lying next to him and rubbed it meditatively as he spoke. "I was."

"Why are you here then?"

Sasori's eyes remained fixed on the screen in front of him. Nothing was open; he was staring at his desktop background. "Because I don't think it's really about me after all."

Dei blinked and looked at him. Sasori's face gave away nothing. "What?"

Sasori sighed and held the blanket up under his nose. He offered it to Deidara, who sniffed it and realized to his surprise that it smelled faintly of mint. _Why would it smell like anything, hm? _Sasori held it in his lap again and closed his eyes as if to think.

Eventually he opened his mouth. Without opening his eyes, Sasori said, "She told me about something last night. About her own perspective, and what the consequences are for her. She knew I'd be angry, and she thought I would leave. It didn't sound like she was talking about me, really. Anyone. She said she was worried everyone would leave, and that would be bad."

There he paused. Deidara said nothing, because he didn't know what to say. _So what does that mean? Does it mean pity? Or something else? Why is he telling me this? I thought he hated pity plays, yeah. _

Sasori opened his eyes and stared down at the blanket. "She said she knew it would be bad for her, after all the effort she's taken. But she also said she didn't care, and it was okay if I left. And…" He looked at the desktop again. "Do you want to know what she said?"

"What?" Dei asked.

"She used the word 'succeed.'" Sasori's eyebrows furrowed a little and his gaze grew distant. Dei figured out what it was when he saw Sasori's hands clench the blanket tighter. _Is that scared? _"She said she would succeed when everyone leaves."

Deidara pointed out the obvious.

Sasori shook his head. "I know, it really doesn't. She also said she imagined herself as a car crashing, turning over, and that would be a lot of fun." _No wonder he looks disturbed, yeah…_ "That was when I realized I have a choice."

"Huh?"

Sasori looked up to meet Deidara's eyes. "I can choose to stay, or to go. She can't. I've had a leg up on her this whole time. The idea of being near someone who would break into my house at any time felt like being trapped, but I'm actually not. I'm the free-est person here."

Dei struggled to comprehend this. _But isn't having someone around who would do things like that still bad? That doesn't magically make it less bad, hm. _"I don't get it."

Sasori sighed. "It's like I didn't actually know I could choose to stay before that, and even if I have, I could still leave. It's not all or nothing right now. I am within my power to give her a second chance."

That explained nothing. Deidara adjusted his front ponytail and said, "I still don't get it, hm. But it's your choice, yeah. So you, like, want to give her a second chance?"

Sasori looked around. "I don't have it here, but there's a book series I know that goes more into it if you want to try to understand. And yeah, I do. After everything you and Laurie said yesterday, I thought…"

"What?"

"Well…" Sasori tightened his hands on the blanket and said nothing. Dei looked, and he turned away. _Is he embarrassed now? What else could looking away mean? _Deidara raised a hand and cautiously put it on Sasori's shoulder. _It's actually really hard to figure out what to do with him, hm. _

Sasori gave the blanket a tight squeeze and let go. "All the stuff you guys said about heroes. Don't get your hopes up, or say I Told You So; I just mean that she also told me about the succubus, and I thought I could be helpful with that. I'm the only one here who's immune to it, after all. If I do leave, I think it should be after I help everyone out. Kind of mean to do it the other way around."

Dei smiled reassuringly, even though he was pretty sure Sasori was turned far enough that he couldn't see. "I just thought it was a good thing, hm. I wouldn't have said I told you so. Thanks, yeah!"

Sasori looked back cautiously. "You're welcome."

Deidara nodded. "Yeah! There's 9 of us, and Kakuzu seemed pretty sure that Hidan would be somewhere else entirely, so if you help that'd be two groups of three and one partnership, hm. You heard it could change sexes, right?"

Sasori said nothing, just rolled his eyes while he removed Deidara's hand from his shoulder and facepalmed afterwards. "Yes, I heard that."

Dei looked up with an injured look on his face. "What? Did I say something?"

Sasori put the blanket aside and pulled his laptop closer again. Dei saw that he'd opened up email correspondence with Laurie. The sound of keys clacking on the keyboard almost drowned out Sasori quietly muttering, "Not really. It's just that I've said things before and your ears are turned off."

Deidara wondered what his friend was referring to. Regardless, it sounded like apologies were in order. "S-sorry, yeah." If he'd said things before, he probably wouldn't appreciate being asked again, or would he? Deidara elected to keep his mouth shut. That was safest.

Sasori stopped tapping away for a moment. "Maybe being here will help with that. You're still a kid."

Deidara barely withheld himself from protesting, then realized that protesting like that was kind of childish. He remembered the quote about putting away childish things and sat back. "Fine. Sounds like I need to tell Konan I'm definitely staying for training, hm. I wasn't sure before and she wanted me to give her an hour."

Sasori hit Send. "See what you can find out in the process. Konan said she first didn't realize I would be angry, and then she did but didn't care. She seemed pretty worried when we talked. The worst just might be past."

**Kakuzu**

Kisame's door was closed, and it gave off the impression somehow that it wasn't going to be open for a while. Worried whining could be heard from within. Kakuzu got fed up with this state of affairs and knocked, loudly, disturbing the entire hallway.

"Who is it?" a guarded voice asked.

"Who else?" Kakuzu grumbled. "Open the damn door."

Kisame did so. Samehada lunged out ahead of him to lick Kakuzu's hand. As usual, licking developed into chewing in short order. Kakuzu ignored this and went on. "I'm not any happier about being this close to a dangerous nutball. You remember." Kisame did.

"So, what?" Kisame asked in turn. "You seem a lot more willing to put up with her, even so."

Kakuzu sighed. "Have you seen the _children_ living here? Someone needs to look out for them, I suppose. Hidan's not in any danger, but his new orange-haired friend is. If I had your luxury of not having anyone to look after I wouldn't have ever been here."

Kisame stiffened. "You think I don't?"

"I think the only ones you need to worry about, you can take with you." Samehada stopped chewing and looked up, licked the air.

"So what?"

"There are three sensible people in this place. Before we make any hasty decisions, I'm in the mood for a meeting." Kakuzu turned and walked down the hall towards the front of the building.

Kisame and Samehada couldn't find fault with that and followed. Deidara met the three of them coming out of Sasori's room. He was smiling. "Hey guys! Wanna talk to Sasori?"

Kakuzu nodded.

Deidara reached back and opened the door. "You're popular today, yeah!" he warned.

Sasori had the laptop closed when they came in to see him and a suitably grumpy expression on his face. "Don't keep me too long," he stated.

Kakuzu shook his head. "I was only gambling that you'd still be here. Why is that?"

Kisame muttered, "Should've taken the chance to run. I would've."

Sasori looked blankly at them. Kakuzu eventually asked, "What?"

"Thinking."

Of what, he didn't say. Kakuzu leaned against a wall and took the opportunity to do some thinking of his own. _What is it about that woman? _He thought of Hidan, who actually had reason to think he would be unharmed but couldn't have known it at the start, then of Yahiko, who definitely did not. _What is she doing? They're fanatically determined to stay for no reason, I'm here and I find myself believing most of what she says, and Sasori's still here even after she broke into his house and stole from him. Dammit, I should've… _He thought back to Itachi's warning when they had been waiting for her to get back with the others. _I was stupid. I should've seen what Itachi was really telling us about. She wasn't just going to use us against each other to get us to agree, but also to keep us trapped. I should never have let myself be trapped like this. _

Sasori finally finished deciding how to phrase what he had to say. "I guess I'm here because I realized I wasn't trapped."

Kakuzu's eyes bored into him. Sasori met them unflinchingly, as if he had already known they wouldn't believe that. Kisame finally asked, "You serious?" in his most skeptical tone of voice.

Sasori nodded. "She shared with me her own viewpoint on this, and I realized that I have a better position than I thought. I can get away from her, but she can't. And she did not sound any more excited to be stuck with herself than I was, and didn't ask me to stay. I have a choice. More than one, actually. For now I'm thinking I'll stay long enough to help with the succubus problem, then decide from there."

Kakuzu's eyes were as narrowed as they could be. "So you're saying you _don't _have the feeling of walls closing in on you or vines wrapping around your legs?"

Sasori gave him a reassessing look as he replied, "Sounds like _you _do." He stood up and moved to get dressed. "Besides, I think the worst of it is going away." He knocked on the wooden closet frame. "She said she was completely unaware at the time that I wouldn't like being stolen from, and now she seems to be on guard against more bad decisions. Hidan's prepared, and she always has him with her. The element of surprise is gone."

Kakuzu couldn't believe what he was hearing. _What the hell did she do to him last night? _Before anyone could say anything more, Kakuzu turned and left.

His eyes stayed narrowed as he stalked to the back door, threw it open, and walked out into the forest. _Maybe he's right about his own situation. Deidara would let him do whatever. Hidan's different. _He remembered that, too, from their little break that day. _That little asshole. _

Speaking of… The sound of footsteps suddenly crashing only a foot or two behind him made Kakuzu whirl. Hidan looked at him with a searching, probing expression in his eyes. "You okay?"

Kakuzu glared and straightened to face him. With his best menacing loom backing him up, Kakuzu growled, "Thanks to you, _no._ What do you want now, you little manipulative asshole?"

Hidan looked injured. "Hey, I- "

"Something's up with you, and I don't feel like putting up with it," Kakuzu snapped. "Whatever the hell you are, whatever you're doing, I don't want any part of it. Especially not the part Konan has. I didn't ask to look after you, but I find myself doing that anyway. Why? Get the hell away from me!"

Kakuzu stopped to take a breath. Only then did the consequences of his anger come back to him. He belatedly realized that Hidan's quick flare of anger had extinguished after the first four words. The younger man now looked at him through eyes filling with tears. They dripped from his face silently, accompanied by quick, frightened breathing. Hidan's hands were trembling. He looked more than injured, now downright _wounded. _

Hidan looked down, now trembling in more than his hands. "Don't - don't say that- "

Kakuzu had never seen Hidan react like this to anything. He steeled himself against pity, against taking back anything he'd said. _Just because he can cry, I'm not going to- _

"To...to anyone...e-else," Hidan finished. _Wait, what? _

Hidan shuddered one last time before turning and running flat out, as if he was running for his life. He was gone from sight in less than three seconds, and the ground was not hilly nor the forest dense. Kakuzu stared after him. Hidan never seemed to care what anyone else thought of him, and Kakuzu hadn't said anything that qualified as blackmail material. Had he?

Kakuzu wondered what exactly he'd said to get Hidan to go away, and thought of some ways to utilize this power for good. He would very much like to be able to shoo away Hidan at will. Now if only the same could be done with certain other people… Kakuzu shook his head. Did he have as much of a choice as Sasori claimed to have? _Well, I suppose it's not as if anyone here could or would kill me. Why did I think I was trapped again? _His hands tightened at the thought of what he'd said to Sasori. That was humiliating. _Dammit. I'd better go back before anything gets worse. _

He walked calmly back to the building as if nothing had ever happened. _Sasori's idea sounds good. I'll make further decisions when we're done with things. _Things were getting complicated. On some level Kakuzu doubted if anything would ever be done with. _I hope Kisame stays around. He is good to talk to. _

Hidan was chattering with Konan in the backyard when Kakuzu returned. He had no trace of fear or sadness or whatever the hell that had been about him. Kakuzu walked up to ask what they were talking about. He kept an eye on Hidan as he did so, but nothing seemed amiss.

Hidan was even the first to answer, as he usually was. "Heya! We were just finishing talking about the training rooms. Have you seen them yet? We made all kinds of improvements, and did I say anything to you yet about how I've kept us busy all night doing productive shit and even getting Konan to eat and drink shit and I guess I didn't sleep so she didn't get a chance to get the instructions under my pillow but, oh well." The last was said with a shrug and a smile. By all accounts, Hidan seemed to be normal.

Kakuzu decided to run some tests. "Do you have any memory of what we were just talking about?" he began.

Hidan scratched. "Uh, no. I don't remember talking at all." He looked at Konan. "Is it okay that you're here, so I don't need to write anything down?" She nodded eagerly and turned to Kakuzu, motioning for him to go on.

Kakuzu wondered how much to mention. "I was angry with you, and said some things that made you upset. You asked me not to tell anyone else before running away."

Hidan stopped scratching, then raised his other hand to rub the top blade of his scythe. "Not tell anyone else? Huh." He looked away to think, and missed Konan's face turning to stare at him intently. Her eyes narrowed as she did her own thinking. She reached a hand up as if to put a hand on his shoulder, but stopped. Her focused face staring intently at Hidan as if trying to see into his soul combined with the hand that hovered just over his skin without his knowledge sent shivers up Kakuzu's back.

She decided against and dropped her hand just as Hidan finished his thinking. "The only thing I've ever been afraid of, really, is that I would like hurt someone, or do something else to cause bad feelings that I would have to feel all the time. Also, I _like_ doing things for people. Maybe if nobody wanted me around and I couldn't do anything for anyone. Kind of the same, actually. Hating me qualifies as a bad feeling." Hidan winced. "Oh fuckwits. I just saw, in my head, nobody ever asking me for anything. Ow. That's definitely super bad. Fuck!"

Konan touched Hidan on the shoulder and waited a few seconds. When nothing happened, she squeezed his shoulder to get his attention. "Hidan, I would like to talk about Jashinist things now," she told him.

Hidan blinked once and muttered, "Yep, I'll be somewhere else," as he turned and walked quickly into the building. Kakuzu looked at Konan. She stared back.

"I questioned him about his memory, and found out that he dislikes and avoids some topics at all times. His original's religion provoked the strongest reaction," she explained. Then it was business. Konan walked directly up to Kakuzu, forcing him to stifle an urge to step back. How could she loom like that when she was shorter than he was? "Tell me the exact words of what you said to him," she demanded.

Kakuzu did as requested. Fortunately it hadn't been much, so it wasn't hard to remember. Konan looked around. Nobody was in hearing distance. Kakuzu wanted to know, "What part of what I said did that? He just said he was afraid of having nobody. I only said I disliked being around him. I said nothing about anyone else."

Konan whispered, "That's why he asked you not to say that to anyone else. It doesn't sound as if you know quite enough to understand how serious it is, but you know enough for me to tell you, I think." Even so she hesitated. Kakuzu leaned in unconsciously. "The important part was 'Whatever the hell he is.' Don't make any mention of him being different around other people," she finally admitted.

Kakuzu was suddenly certain that he could not leave if he desperately wanted to. This sounded too good, too juicy to leave alone. _Dammit. That little- _What was he? _I probably don't want to know. _Konan seemed to think it very, very important. _I don't want anything to do with her. _Maybe whatever he was had something to do with… _No. _Yeah, that line of thought didn't have enough information to be completed yet. Kakuzu gave up. _Hidan always tells me I should have more fun with things. Maybe that's the only way I'm going to get through this craziness. _

Konan glared at him. "I have no doubt that what he fears would come to pass if you're loose-lipped about this," she warned. "I will shut you up myself if need be."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "As if I have any desire to deal with this." He just wanted to learn more about himself and get what entertainment he could out of this. Was that so hard?

Konan smiled. "On that condition, I would be happy to consider you an ally and potential partner in this mission." She clarified, "The mission of finding out what's going on with Hidan, I mean. It could be important."

Sasori's words came back. _The worst of it is going away. _An ally or partner? If it meant she would be more forthcoming and pleasant in the future, sure. "I'd be happy to tell you if he has any more memory lapses, and what it was about," Kakuzu offered.

"Thank you."

Hidan sipped at his drink and wondered what he had lost, and if he missed it.

.

**A/N: Just about my favorite book series of all time is The Deed of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon. It does indeed go into what Sasori describes, although that's all the way into the 3rd book so you have to read the entire series to get there. That is not at all a bad thing. It's a fantasy series with magic, divine powers helping people, and elves/dwarves/all those kinds of races. No dragons, but a fairly intelligent main character who does things the smart way for once. It also goes into a lot of detail about military strategy and the life of a recruit, which is just _fascinating_. Much recommended, by me.**

**Patching will have to come in future chapters. I still can't wait to see what I'm gonna do!**


	26. The Succubus Cometh

**A/N: First big news: I was wrong. I ended up doing some more work on that other story I mentioned which has Kakashi and Orochimaru as characters, and chapter 2 ended up containing a lot of exposition on what demons are and what they can do and so forth. For that reason, I am publishing the first two chapters for anyone here who wants to learn more. The second chapter will be going up today. The story is called "In Search Of Demons."  
**

**Second big news: My dad informs me that succubi and incubi are supposed to be 2 different demons. WTH? That makes no sense to me just, conceptually (what would be the point of that?), wasn't in the story I read (also apparently had a different interpretation of what powers they have. Lovely) and sucks even worse than that story's idea of what they were so I will not be adjusting my version of the succubus at all. I reject that interpretation and substitute my own!**

**Shoutout to ThatSexyShikamaru, the first reviewer to not be anonymous. He says that Konan does not get many stories written about her. That is an outrage! She's likeable, heroic, and has a lot we don't know about her. That should be perfect fanfic fuel. Anyway, I'm happy to be contributing if that is the case. Enjoy the action!**

**.**

**Konan**

Kakuzu was careful to specify that this time, he would not be staying for training. He would be doing what he liked best, which was organizing the money that still lay unorganized in the basement. Konan was sure that he was leaving very much out. But, she let him keep his reasons to himself, and only asked what Samehada wanted, for Kisame had again left the shark in Kakuzu's care. She wondered why that was. After the way he'd reacted yesterday, why on earth would Samehada be left here with her?

Samehada licked the air as the humans talked. Kakuzu looked down at him. "I have no idea. Ask him yourself. I'm just being saddled with this because Kisame can't take him back to the aquarium, and he wouldn't like being left alone at the lake. This unpaid babysitting is getting old." Samehada nuzzled his leg and made worried sounding noises. Kakuzu sounded tired as he replied, "No, not you. Just the responsibility in general." At the start of his complaint, his gaze had settled on Konan and never left. It was still there. Analyzing. Konan felt the briefest twitch of a desire to scratch his eyes out so he would stop looking at her like that, but it passed before any effort was required. He was right to do so.

She tried her best to act relatively normal as she turned to look down at Samehada. "I was going to work with Deidara and his explosive clay over the lake. You're invited." Samehada was quiet for a few seconds as he considered this, then lolled his tongue out. It seemed he liked that idea.

Konan dismissed Kakuzu with a wave of her hand. "He should be expecting me shortly. I must speak with Hidan first. Enjoy yourself." Kakuzu turned and walked away without looking back. He must not have found anything displeasing in his analysis. _That's only because he cannot read minds. _Yes, Hidan had to be found first.

Hidan was actually coming out back, so she met him in the hallway. "Hey! …" His usual small smile faded, and he suddenly looked very serious, which in turn made him look much older. "What is it?"

Konan looked him in the eyes as she cut right to the chase. "I need your help."

"How?" There was no hesitation before that demand. He looked nothing other than concerned, as far as she could tell. "I feel kinda...sense of doom-y here. What's gonna fix that?"

Konan shook her head. "I'm not sure. I need you to come up with something. Something that can fix what I've done, and hopefully keep this entire venture from falling apart. I tried to come up with an idea last night, but did not. I find lack of sleep helpful in these times for that. I'll leave it to you."

Hidan's eyes grew wide. "It _does _actually feel like I've missed sleep this time. Is it over?"

Konan nodded. "I'll get around to feeling tired later. But now, I know I should be. That's the definition of 'over' I've been using."

"Cool." Hidan put his hand on his chin. "Something that can fix shit, huh…"

"Remember, my entire life and future is in your hands," Konan reminded him as she turned and went out back.

"Yeah, I've got that," Hidan agreed. "Ooh, that could work…"

_Only Hidan could be so flippant about something like that. _Or maybe he was just picking up signals from her. Konan had been a little flippant herself. She still was. As with last night, with Sasori, sounding concerned was now within her capabilities although feeling it was not. Konan found her mind wandering back to how she would show everyone what they'd done last night. The training rooms were so - _No. I should be thinking about my future, and how it's in trouble. _That topic seemed boring and hollow, devoid of substance. _Well, I have done all I can, really. Hidan'll handle it. I should be thinking about what to do with Deidara. _Now _that_ seemed important.

**Sasori**

_Maybe they were right. She did bribe me with that blanket. Not exactly a psychoactive drug, but some kind of similar influence. I don't think I'm entirely wrong; it feels much better to know I have some power in this. But is making the choice to stay a good use of that power? _Sasori shut off the engine. The silence was deafening. _This really isn't what I signed up for. I could be making other uses of my time and sanity. _The wheels crunched on the ground as he brought his motorcycle to a stop and flipped the kickstand. A small, but annoying, voice whispered, _Like what? _Sasori disregarded that voice for now. He didn't know yet if it was a shoulder angel or devil. Best to ignore it.

A warm wind blew across his face. It was a surprise how warm it was now that he was not forcing himself through it at great speed. Sasori let it ruffle his hair and inhaled. It smelled good. He felt a twinge of regret, as he did sometimes, for all the time he spent inside. _Then again… With my feelings flip-flopping like this, there's no one right thing to do. I'll stick to my word and think about it later. _The slow wind smelled of growing things and dirt. It was soothing. Sasori's main question was whether or not he should be soothed. It did feel better, but was it really better?

"Hey," came a soft, silky voice behind him. It reached Sasori's ears like honey. He could feel it like a caress, a lover's caress running up his back in a very disturbing and not at all respecting of his privacy way. He turned involuntarily.

The bottom dropped out of Sasori's stomach and he began to sweat as his eyes were roped into and swallowed by the honey-sweet trap. A perfectly normal-looking young lady had walked in from the street to talk to Sasori. She looked shy and sweet, but something about the sight of her brought visions to Sasori's eyes. He had the feeling that, like her voice, it was supposed to feel good to see, hear, almost _taste_ those things. He swallowed against nausea and took an involuntary step backward. _What the hell? _

Sasori's fingers twitched and he wished he had that thing that Konan always had on her, that pouch. Whatever was in it had to be good for some kind of defense. The woman in front of him seemed to make the air shiver around her, shiver with promise of all kinds of things. The promise reached Sasori's skin and set it on fire, blazing with the acid burns of something that was never meant to come into contact with his skin. Something was terribly wrong with this woman. Sasori kept his eyes on her, recalled Laurie's lessons, tightened his right hand into a fist, and stifled a laugh. _And I thought Konan was creepy… I know better now. _

She stood where she was and stared at him, disappointed. "Aw. So cute too."

"Who and more importantly what the hell are you?" Sasori retorted. He'd never felt so clearly someone else's intention to pounce on him and do things he would rather nobody ever do to him. _Is this what Hidan feels like sometimes when he's near Konan? Kakuzu said that first time…_ Sasori suddenly felt a wave of mingled pity and relief wash over him. _I'm sure it's great sometimes, but I am very happy to not be like him. _

The woman's face now turned angry. It did not diminish or change the aura she was putting off in the slightest. "I'm happy enough with what we _have,_" she snapped. "Nobody asked for troublemakers, nobody asked for weirdos going around trying to add themselves to the pantheon or whatever. We've got what we've got. No need to take _your_ rejects."

Sasori shoved aside the unpleasantness in his mind and tried to listen, figure out what her complaint was. _She's complaining about...additions. Troublemakers. Pantheon? That's for… _He dug his nails into his palm, which helped just enough. "You don't like…" he began, then winced. _Ugh. I can almost feel her... _"You don't like our world. Because there are beings coming from it, into here. Messing up your dynamic."

She snorted. "_Beings. _They were _brought_ here. You people brought him. What's going to happen when that little bubble pops? He's already making this place his dominion! Where are we gonna go? Eh, but what do you know. You can't send him back where he came from. Maybe…" Her glare was vicious, and Sasori steeled himself against an outburst of the aura surrounding her. "Maybe without support for that attachment he's got, he'll go back where he belongs," she growled.

It was more than clear from her tone what she meant. Somehow, though Sasori had no idea what she meant by it, he knew that he and the others were the supports she was talking about. Would she really attack him here, next to his bike, with no advantage but a mental weapon that wasn't working? Sasori doubted it, but her words inspired a flare of courage nonetheless. Chakra gathered in his fingers, ready to sprout strings at any moment.

"Mutants," she spat, and turned to leave. Sasori watched her for as long as he could, making sure she was really leaving the area. When she turned away into town, his fingers relaxed. The gathered chakra dispersed. His breath eased too, and his legs almost collapsed before he remembered to hold them. Sasori's heart still pounded in his chest. He looked around at things on the ground. A gray rock. A reddish-brown rock with smooth corners. A pebble with little stripes. A few blades of grass struggling up through the sand-covered rocky soil. They were probably doomed. The mental categorizing helped, and he was able to stand with no wobbling or hesitation.

Sasori tried to think about what he had just experienced, but it was sufficiently unpleasant that all he was able or willing to come up with was _That was...bad. _He shook his head. _Bad. Definitely hostile. Wants to get rid of me in order to get rid of something or someone else. No. _His hand shot to his side. _Not just me. Probably the others too. My instincts said so, and my instincts were not wrong about anything else. _He knew he would be shouted at for being late. Laurie might be shouted at too. That was on top of his punishment for taking the incriminating paper, which he still didn't know what it was. Sasori did not care. All of those things ranked a million places below his number one priority.

His number one priority: _Warn everyone else. _All that, and he was _immune. _How much worse could it get for anyone who wasn't?

**Itachi**

Itachi's phone rang in the middle of a light spring tune he was trying out. Some passers-by seemed to think it appropriate for such fine weather and chuckled. A woman stopped and winked at him. Itachi didn't really see anything special in her. He was going to let her down with a simple shake of his head, but then his phone rang.

That ended his playing at once. He apologized to the woman silently and checked who it was from. _Sasori? _That was interesting. Itachi was not at all irritated to be interrupted, but more than a little apprehensive. This had to be interesting, and coming from Sasori he had the vague idea that it wouldn't be a good kind of interesting.

"What's happening?" he asked, his nerves showing in his voice. The woman had dithered for a few seconds before deciding to politely walk away, but this stopped her. She turned back.

"I just met the succubus we've been worried about," Sasori began with no preamble. In fact he sounded out of breath, as if rushed. "She is definitely hostile, wants to get rid of us because we're associated somehow with someone she wants to run out of this world, and that description Konan gave of lust-based hypnosis does not do her powers justice. I'm immune to that hypnosis, but it still hit me like a bear. She backed off when she saw I kept my senses, but she's heading into town. Get under cover, _now._"

Itachi went pale and could think of nothing to say. The line dropped immediately after the last word anyway. He was not conscious of putting his phone back in his pocket. _For Sasori to be that shaken…_ Itachi took this situation with exactly as much gravity as it warranted.

The woman who'd winked at him was still nearby, unsure what to say or do. Whatever he had heard on the other end of that phone, it seemed to have scared him very badly. She walked back a few steps and asked, "Are you...alright?"

Itachi started. He'd forgotten she was there. He remembered and opened his mouth to let her down, but thought better of it. After that message…

She didn't seem actively unpleasant, and didn't have any effect on him like Sasori had described. Itachi promised himself he would let her down gently later. For now, he asked, "Do you know a good place to eat?"

She'd thought he was cute, and taken the chance to wink at him, but she hadn't expected _this_ much. She smiled and scrapped the rest of her plans for the day. Itachi hoped she was entirely heterosexual as he let her lead him away.

**Nagato**

_Why is Sasori calling me? He wouldn't, unless…_ He came to the same conclusion Itachi had. "Has something happened?"

Sasori explained about the succubus. Nagato's throat clenched. "Who?" he had the presence of mind to ask as soon as Sasori was finished. "Who would we be associated with that…?"

"I don't know. She didn't waste her time actually explaining anything to me; I'm just a human after all. All she said was that she didn't want troublemakers, and something about additions to pantheons, or something like that. It doesn't really matter." Sasori gave a quick sigh.

Nagato thought quickly enough to add, "Didn't we make a group chat?"

"That's a really good idea, actually." Sasori sounded like he had not thought of that. "I could keep people posted, too. She seemed angry at me."

"Please do." _*click* _

Nagato knew exactly where he wanted to be for cover. And other reasons, but cover wasn't a bad excuse. He grabbed his keys and went straight to Yahiko's place of work.

**Kisame**

_Yikes. Well, I work in a place swarming with people, so I'm probably safe. _That felt kind of bad to think. Kisame wondered if he should feel guilty for effectively using people as shields. _I'm not really, _he justified to himself. _With enough people around, a demon like that can't even take one person's soul. Everyone's pretty safe. _Still, he felt pretty bad for thinking of himself before that.

**Deidara**

_Oh shit, hm. _If even Sasori was freaking out, Dei knew he should be taking this as a high level threat. Konan finished applying a bandage to the part of his leg that she had wounded when he was first distracted, and asked what it was. She sounded impatient. Deidara kept it short and sweet.

Samehada whined when he was done 5 seconds later. Konan insisted he write back over the group chat and ask for more details. Deidara did so. They waited a few minutes until a reply came. When it did, Konan skimmed the paragraph very quickly, her eyes catching on the word "pantheon." At that she looked closer and more thoroughly, taking almost a full minute to pore over the words. Deidara got a look, and didn't see anything of note. His curiosity was sparked.

"What was so important in that, hm?" he asked as she handed him his phone back.

Konan said nothing as she stood. _Damn! Why'd she have to go back to being quiet and not showing much now, hm?! Couldn't have waited another day or two? _He sighed and muttered, "I'm not going to get an answer, am I, hm," as he stood too. The pain wasn't really too bad. Thank goodness it was only a scratch. _On the other hand, she'd have done a lot worse before, yeah. Maybe I should be glad she's calmed down a little? _

"It's not strictly necessary for you to know, and there may be consequences if too many people know," Konan said carefully. Deidara groaned. Hearing that much just made him want to know _more. _But he knew for a fact he wasn't getting any more.

"Very well," she conceded. "If your device alerts you to any more of those messages, we will instantly stop the training to see what it is. This is very important. Let's go until then." Deidara nodded and reached into a large bag she had helpfully provided for his clay. He had no idea how, but it seemed like he did not really need to mold the clay into a shape, not the way a normal person would have needed to. His chakra seemed a little different depending on the shape he formed it into. A spider was pretty unstable, but a bird was the epitome of stable, which was good because the bird was rather large and Deidara didn't really want to set it off. Deidara figured that the differences in his chakra probably helped mold it into the shape he wanted.

They started again, at a slightly slower pace this time. Once Deidara got back into the swing of it, he had enough processing power freed up to realize that Konan didn't seem to be putting as much into it as she had before. _What was in that info? _He despaired that he would never know.

**Yahiko**

_Uh oh. What do I do? _Yahiko wondered if he should hide, and where, and would that just make things worse, or what could he do? It was really important, after all. He thought of going to his boss.

There was only one problem with that idea: his boss was the one currently pointing Nagato in the right direction. Yahiko just tried to return a few things to their racks and think of some lines he could use to explain. None came to mind.

Nagato walked to his side and didn't say anything, much to Yahiko's relief. He turned to look at the display. "That's why you do the colorful half of the posters," Nagato joked. He gestured to a part of the rack.

"Um, yeah. The blue and green stuff just...goes together. And I think having it all in a rainbow pattern helps people find colors they like." _Why is he not asking why I work in _this _department? _

Nagato turned to him with a goal-oriented look on his pale face. Yahiko ran his tongue around his mouth nervously. "Is there any way I can stay for the rest of your shift?"

"What?" _Where did that come from? _

Nagato looked at him strangely. "Do you have your phone on you?"

Yahiko shook his head. "We get lockers. Why?"

Nagato opened his mouth to explain why, then closed it. "You know what, how about I tell you later," he delayed. "So what about my question? Is there any way?"

Yahiko relaxed, and a strange warmth spread through his chest. _Does he...not care? Maybe he's not going to ask. _Yeah, that was a foolish hope. Yahiko knew that any man who worked with something like women's clothing had to be suspected of being gay, or other things. Nagato wouldn't suspect him of _that,_ but maybe other things…

He realized Nagato was still waiting for an answer. "Oh, uh, yeah. I'm not worked that hard. There are chairs we can use when there's nothing to do for a few minutes." He pointed.

"Will your boss mind?"

Yahiko picked his words carefully. "She goes easy on me. Just don't try to talk to me while I'm supposed to be working." _Please don't ask why she goes easy on me. _

"Great!" Nagato wandered off without another word. Yahiko let out a small breath he'd been holding and finished. Only then did it occur to him to wonder, _Why is Nagato here, and why won't he tell me? _

**Sasori**

Several hours later, after everyone had responded to say they were fine and thanked him for the heads up, Sasori had more than one reason to be concerned. He contemplated calling Konan and asking her what this feeling was, as it was one that only a ninja could be familiar with.

After the curious lack of business yesterday, things got back to normal today. Too normal. It was just like any other day Sasori had spent working in his false past. Sasori's guts tingled, and a very small warning klaxon constantly blared on the edge of his hearing. Where was the outburst he'd expected? The boss seemed...quiet today. Too quiet. Sasori could feel his hands beginning to tremble as his nerves frayed.

He took a quick 30 seconds to send a quick message in the group chat. Some of the Akatsuki members with more free time, such as Nagato and Itachi, had started using the chat as it was intended to be used: for minor conversation. Sasori jumped in with a question of his own. "Should I be paranoid that my boss who yells a lot isn't yelling as much as usual? He's not yelling at all. And he knows I stole something from him a couple days ago."

He waited until his phone had buzzed multiple times before he took another few seconds to check. The first reply was from Nagato: "I'd be worried about any sudden change in anyone's behavior, but that sounds extra bad. Paranoid is good."

Then Itachi: "Listen to your instincts."

Then Deidara: "I just asked Konan, and she says yes. I agree. Is he not yelling at Laurie too?"

That was a thing to consider. Sasori let his gut sink, but refused to panic as he had two days ago while he thought. He had not heard the boss yell at her, either. His growing sense of danger had kept him tracking the man's movements, and Sasori didn't remember him even going near the front desk like he usually did. More bad signs. He signed off: "Thanks everyone. I don't think he can literally kill me, so I should be fine. See you later."

As the time for his lunch break approached, Sasori tried to consider this from a battle-strategy perspective. He had every reason to think there was some conflict going on. So what strategy was the manager employing? Was this a tactical retreat to give himself time to think of something really bad? _Doubt it. I'm not sure he has the patience for that. _But Sasori kept that option in reserve, because it was possible. If not a retreat, then what? Was he genuinely leaving Sasori alone? _No. _Getting backup, maybe making calls to some friends of his? _I doubt there's any legal backup he could get. And as for illegal backup, I have some evasive skills and backup of my own if I can get out in time. Another reason to stay on high alert and keep my ears open. _

Though that one seemed to be the likeliest, he knew it was best to think of everything. What was the manager's biggest problem? _I'm rather bullying-resistant. _What could the man try to get around that? _...Wait._ Sasori remembered the silent looming. _He could try this. If he wants to freak me out, he's doing so now, with not yelling. Like the silent looming, but more effective. _Scratch everything, _this_ one seemed to be the likeliest. Fortunately for Sasori, considering the worst from this perspective was more calming than he'd expected. _Screw that. _He made sure to keep an eye and ear out anyway. But really, it was kind of foolish to be worrying about some normal guy with an overactive temper, when he had a literal demon to think of. Something clicked in Sasori's mind, and he was suddenly very concerned again. But this time, he couldn't tell what he was concerned about.

His lunch break arrived, and Sasori took it gladly. He still had no idea what some part of his mind had thought of. _Laurie. I should see if she's okay, or if she's freaking out like I was. _That thought resonated with something. Sasori ignored his lunch and went out to the front.

"How are things…?" He trailed off as his brain fully registered what his eyes were seeing. There was a reasonably handsome man, the sight of whom inspired thoughts of rippling man-flesh and forceful- _I'm going to hurl if I keep thinking of this. _Sasori's stomach did indeed clench, but he held it at bay for Laurie's sake. Laurie, who looked as if she'd had a glimpse of heaven itself. Laurie, who was now slipping from her seat and edging around the desk, neither taking her eyes off the mystery man nor remembering to close her mouth.

Sasori grabbed her arm before she got out of arm's reach (he desperately did _not_ want to take a step closer to that _thing_) and pulled her backward, stepping in between her and the incubus. "Probably should have realized you'd hate not being able to do anything to me," Sasori muttered. The horrendous visions still came. He fought to resist the urge to close his eyes.

Laurie let out a weak mewl of protest. She leaned to see around Sasori's head. Aside from that he got no resistance on her part, for which Sasori was very grateful. The incubus was not, and growled with displeasure. The most resistance Sasori got was from himself, as he valiantly kept himself from running at the sight of the man's mouth (and accompanying visions). Sasori clenched his fist. _I've got options, and this is a bad one. He could kill Laurie, or worse. Don't get scared, get __**angry**_. Was Sasori the type of person who could muster the strength to smack a rapist? Yeah, he decided, he was. It took some time and mental preparation to work himself up, but the incubus saw this in his eyes. It growled and seemed to force itself to resist its own urge to attack. Those eyes had their own visions to inflict, but Sasori could push them aside to see how cold those eyes were. The incubus left the building, but that coldness stayed in the foreground of Sasori's vision, and he knew that he had just made a lifelong enemy.

Laurie's arm slackened in his grip, and he let her go. "Who was _that_?" she asked, with awe in her voice. "Why…?"

Sasori gagged, almost retched but he managed to hold that. It wouldn't have been enough if his stomach was really dead-set on rebellion, but it was enough to stall until his skin stopped tingling so unpleasantly. Sasori once more felt that he had clothes on, lost the impression that his outermost layer of skin had been stripped off and he was being poked and prodded and invaded. Even with his skin and clothes restored, he still shook and wrapped his arms around his midsection, curled up into a little ball on the floor. _I hate demons. I hate them very much. _His teeth chattered painfully, a welcome distraction.

Laurie put an arm around his shoulders. With her, that gesture was fine. Meaningless. His teeth stopped chattering so much, and Sasori mumbled, "Thanks." He would never again lack sympathy for other people who knew what it felt like to have one's skin taken off.

Laurie still crouched next to him, growing increasingly worried as the memory of volcanically hot guys faded from her mind. She shoved...whoever that had been...out of her mind and saw her new friend looking sick. She shifted around to look him in the eyes. "Sasori? What's wrong?" She applied both hands to his shoulders and ordered, "Look at me."

He did so. "That was an incubus," he whispered. "Apparently they have effects on everyone; the only difference is how you respond. I did not get that impression from her description before…" He shivered.

Laurie's brows furrowed. "Incubus?"

"Seductive soul-stealing demon. Another guy in the club I'm in angered one recently," Sasori explained. He took several deep breaths. "I'm glad I was here so it couldn't hurt you. They do hypnosis. It's impossible for most people to face one alone."

Laurie remembered how she'd felt. "Oh, god. It was like… I just completely forgot about everything. Everything related to danger, or responsibility, anything like that, I didn't remember it even existed. I didn't think of anything…" She pushed away the memory of how good it had felt to see that muscular, tanned body. "I'm glad you were here too." She gave Sasori a hug.

Sasori uncurled his legs as best he could and hugged her back. "This must have been what was freaking me out earlier."

"What?"

"After I figured out what the boss was doing, I- " He stopped midsentence. He released her and got to his feet. "The boss. He's not yelling at you today, is he?"

Laurie smiled. "No. Isn't that great?"

"It is not." Sasori looked at the door. "That demon has two forms, and I've beaten both of them. It hates me now. It might come back." He looked to Laurie. "I'd bet on it coming back. But my lunch break isn't going to last forever."

"And the boss…?"

"Does not give me the impression that he's gay, and makes a very loud noise whenever he thinks you're not being productive." Sasori thumped a frustrated fist down on the desk. "At least, most days he does. Dammit…"

Laurie's face fell. "Oh no. So, what? We need to get him yelling again, is that what you're saying?"

"Yes." Sasori looked down the hall. No activity from the office. He beckoned for Laurie to come over, and whispered in her ear. "Earlier, I'm mostly sure I figured out why he's doing this. He does a silent loom at me, but it doesn't work. I think he's upgrading to the silent treatment to get me to freak out like he wants. But, now that I know this, it's not working. I think I'm going to walk into his office, right now, and show him that it's not. Maybe if he sees it's not working he'll go back to yelling."

Laurie nodded. "And then I come up with some reason for him to hang around me the rest of the day?" This plan sounded and felt just _awful_, but the thought of losing half her brain like before sounded worse. Having sex in her workplace where the boss might see ranked a good several places higher than being yelled at on her personal list of Bad Things. Which was _before_ she factored in the soul-stealing part of that description. She would do almost anything to avoid that. Even if it meant inviting him to spend the whole workday with her.

Sasori nodded. "I'm so sorry."

Laurie checked the computer at the desk. "It's almost been 15 minutes. Go, already!"

15 minutes was all they got for a break at lunch. Sasori pushed himself off and aimed at the boss's door. He turned the knob gently and stuck his head in without knocking. "I just thought I should let you know, there's a shifty customer hanging around, trying to get deals because he's '_oh so handsome_'. I don't like the looks of him." Sasori paused dramatically, then smiled and added, "I'm glad to see you in such a good mood today, sir. A day off seems to have done wonders." He let a wide, smug grin begin to spread across his face as he closed the door. He sent a thumbs up to Laurie, who returned it even as her heart sank.

Sasori went back to his work, keeping an ear out as planned. _He'll be pissed, but I'll still be a harder target than she will. Hopefully that's all the incentive he needs._ There were some angry-sounding footsteps and faint spluttering coming from the office. Then the door opened. Footsteps in the hall. _Oh, oh… _Success! Footsteps down the hall, heading to the front desk. Sasori opened the group chat and left 3 smileys, a birthday emoji, and a dancing emoji with no explanation provided whatsoever. The dancing one had a hula dancer's grass skirt for some reason, but it was still appropriate. Sasori's face was neutral-pleased with a small smile and relaxed features as he went about the rest of his day.

.

**A/N: I realized yesterday I seem to have character-centered arcs going. That's a great idea for a story like this with a bunch of characters! I wish I could say I thought of it. If anyone reading this knows another author (or whoever) who does this in their stories, I'd be very interested to see that. **

****It appears I will be taking a good few chapters to get around to patching the continuity error. I already thought of the solution, but other stuff's happening so it's going to take forever to get back to addressing Kakuzu. I've started the chapter after this, and it's probably not going to happen there, so maybe in two weeks I'll find someplace to wedge in a scene with Kakuzu that addresses that.****


	27. For Rusty

**A/N: I had this chapter written the day after I posted the last one, and the chapter after this written the day after that. It's been a long time since I could say I had that much material in advance. This week has been a good one. I can now definitely say that next week's chapter will feature Kakuzu giving the best reason I could think of for that scene.  
**

**Next week's chapter will also be the last before the spring semester starts. Have fun y'all!**

**.**

**General**

This is how the rest of everyone else's day proceeded:

Itachi went on an extended breakfast date with the woman who had winked at him. She did not have any particular appreciation for guitars, but enjoyed woodwinds such as the flute or clarinet. She was in luck; Itachi also enjoyed the sound of woodwinds, even if he had only ever taken beginner's lessons in how to play them. They had a very nice discussion which was rudely interrupted after 20 minutes or so by the most lovely voice Itachi had ever heard. His mind clouded over and he could see nothing except the most lovely human being he had never known existed. The world returned only briefly after the woman he was with hit him over the head with her bag. As he cradled the back of his head and looked down at the pavement, Itachi felt greatly disoriented. He remembered just enough to realize this was a bad sign, and took off running in the opposite direction. With his hands still clapped over his ears, of course. He made it all the way to the aquarium, where he spent a rather nice sum of money in exchange for the shelter it provided. He pointed out to Kisame that it was a good shelter because there were so many people, the demon could not make an attempt on any of them. Kisame got a strange look on his face after Itachi said that, and Itachi did not know why. He didn't ask.

Kisame eventually volunteered the reason anyway. Itachi was surprised, but happy. They ended up having a long discussion of morality and the relative importance of thoughts vs. behaviors. Itachi was fairly split between the two, but admitted he could come up with no argument in support of the idea that thoughts alone were capable of harming or helping. But since thought leads to and supports action, he couldn't make up his mind in either direction. Kisame had trouble understanding how anyone could not clearly see that thoughts alone had moral value. It seemed to him very obvious. This excellent discussion was the highlight of his day; Kisame did not encounter the succubus at all, because the aquarium really was a great place to be for protection.

Yahiko felt too guilty about hoping he would never have to tell Nagato certain things to ask why Nagato was there. If he was going to be anything, he at least didn't want to be a hypocrite. So he did not ask Nagato why he was there, and enjoyed a very pleasant day undisturbed by trouble. Well, aside from a brief commotion sometime during the morning when a female customer and a male customer drew some attention. She seemed to not want him to be so close to her, and it would have ended there if a sales associate had not then come up to ask if he was bothering her, and then other things happened. Nagato heard something before Yahiko did and practically forced him into a chair, so Yahiko didn't get to see anything, but Nagato left and came back a few minutes later saying he'd helped diffuse the situation and everything was fine. Yahiko felt even worse after that. Nagato was the best person he knew, his best ever friend, and still Yahiko couldn't say things to him. The fact that he couldn't figure out how to say anything to himself yet either was disregarded as being beside the point.

Nagato wondered if he was really doing Yahiko any favors by not telling him about the succubus, but when she actually showed up he did not hesitate to shove Yahiko into the nearest seat. He raced over as fast as he could (he had to; she had a bit of a temper on her, and was showing it with every second that passed where she couldn't get either the guy or the sales associate to leave her alone), and confirmed the vague feeling he'd gotten. In a way, seeing her up close actually had a silver lining for him. He'd always wondered what being attracted to women was supposed to feel like; now he knew, and was able to be sure that he did not feel that. In fact he could be sure that he did not ever _want_ to feel that. Nagato decided to thank her for helping him grow closer to himself later; for now, he intervened with the sales associate, shoved the man to the side, and glared at her with all of the strength and anger he could channel through the Rinnegan. She got the hint. He felt warmth and pride in his abilities on the way back, and resolved his moral dilemma. It seemed Yahiko was perfectly safe not knowing about the succubus. He'd be fine.

Hidan was taking his responsibilities very seriously. That was why he sat with Kakuzu idly chatting about where they were going to put the money. Kakuzu suggested his own bank account. Hidan took that seriously and said sure, why not? He might want to add someone else to it in case he was injured, but they were all living together so there was really no reason why not. The silence after he finished speaking told him that Kakuzu had been kidding, and Kakuzu threw him out of the basement. So then Hidan played with Sammy, leading him up to the large river Deidara had gotten clay from. The whole time, he was taking his responsibility to Konan seriously. Really.

Kakuzu smacked Hidan over the head later, before grudgingly admitting that the idea had grown on him. In the meantime, he monitored the group chat. Kakuzu did not send any messages of his own, but silently observed. He found it very interesting how Sasori signed off taking solace in survival, then 20 minutes later was over the moon with joy. He was glad Sasori had decided to stay just so he could get some answers out of the redhead. The rest of Kakuzu's time was spent treating the money very nicely and debating with himself whether he wanted to tie himself to the Akatsuki by keeping their money. He did not reach a decision.

Deidara made a heck of a lot of spiders and a single bird. He and Konan mostly focused on the speed at which he could make spiders of every size and how fast he could get them where they needed to be. The bird helped with that tremendously. Not only did it help Dei get around faster, it also made a good place to put a spider down since, Konan was amused to discover, Dei's creations could not control their own chakra to walk on water. At least the resulting splash cooled him off and soothed his skin, which was dried and heated by repeated use of explosives. By the end of the day Deidara was freaking out quite a lot. Neither he nor Konan had thought about what they would do with the bird. Dei really didn't want to blow it up, and now that it was here he could do nothing else with it. All his earlier anxiety about his original's techniques returned, and Konan spent the afternoon helping him stop hyperventilating. He ended up flying the bird back home and stuffing it in the garage with the antifreeze. Deidara did not get any sleep that night for fear he would somehow manage to accidentally blow the bird up in his dreams.

Konan sat on the bird running her hands over its smooth clay head. It did not have any soft clay feathers, for which Konan was ambivalent. Soft clay feathers would be very nice, but also very distracting. Petting its bare head was not distracting, and did not keep her from wondering about the important things. Jashin-sama. Her past. Yahiko. Her past. The succubus. Her past. Whatever Hidan would come up with, the succubus, Jashin-sama, and her past. The bird was very nice to lie on, and made a good impromptu bed. Lying in a bed felt strange. Staring at the ceiling in the dark with her eyes failing to focus (how had she ever gotten through Deidara's training?) no matter how hard she tried was worse. Her heart beat fast and her breath came shallowly.

She did not fall asleep. Deidara did not have a panic attack. Itachi did not die. Samehada did not hear the full story from Hidan before it got too dark. As they all gathered for the nightly regrouping that was starting to become a little ritual, there was one question on everyone's mind.

_What will we do? _

**Sasori**

The incubus did not come back for the remainder of the working day. The boss never once let up on his suspicions, and continued to peek in every few minutes to try and catch Laurie chatting with some boy. Oddly enough, Laurie did not mind this as much as she usually would have. She wondered what made a difference. Was it the fact that this time she wanted him to be hanging around, had deliberately chosen it? Was it fear of the incubus overshadowing any fear she had of being yelled at? Was it the knowledge that Sasori had her back, that she wasn't alone, that she had a friend? Either way, a new spring of courage had bubbled up and was not stopping. She considered signing herself up for further martial arts classes. She hadn't had the right fortitude to do well before, but this time…

Sasori came out the front door instead of the door in his workshop. He stopped at Laurie's desk, as she'd expected. Laurie couldn't help smiling. To be able to expect that…

"It's been quiet," he remarked.

"Yeah. You think the incubus will come back?" Laurie wondered. "If he really hates you, he might."

"I've been thinking of that." Sasori fidgeted with his sleeve. "Do you...want to meet the rest of the club?"

Laurie's mouth fell open. "What? I mean...you...you think so…?"

Sasori shook his head as if to ward off accusations. "I'm not sure what's possible. Like you said, I have an enemy now. I'm pretty sure he, or she, or whatever wants to kill me. That feels weird to say." He shook his head again. "I have no reason to expect that you'd be safe alone, since it can't directly attack me."

He stilled. "Oh...sorry," he apologized before she could say anything. "Do you live alone? I thought for some reason…"

"Yeah. I do," Laurie admitted. "Probably pretty obvious from how I act and everything I've said, I guess."

"I'm sorry to get you wrapped up in this." Sasori sighed. "I'm not even the one who pissed it off in the first place, that was Hidan. You shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"No!" Laurie punched him in the shoulder. "Don't worry about me unless I do, okay? I'm glad to have met you. I didn't hate being shadowed by the boss today. I might even continue my martial arts training. And some other hobbies. I feel like I can do that now." She poked him in the shoulder with her pointer finger. "That's because of you. It's been a while since I've really had someone in my corner."

Sasori was stunned. "It has?" _I can be that important to someone? _

"Yeah." The courage that had helped her say those things was running out. She blushed and retreated to her desk. "If there's anyone who needs punching, it's the guy who ticked off a demon in the first place."

"Hidan would be happy to let you punch him in the face if it helped you feel better," Sasori replied absently. _Rusty. My kitty. _"I had a cat once."

Laurie looked up at the strange tone in his voice.

"His name was Rusty, because he was red. A little darker than my hair," Sasori remembered. "He had the softest fur, and he used to lie on my clothes to make them warm. He'd sit in the chair next to me while I ate, and make these cute little mews at me to beg for human food. When I said no, he'd jump into my lap. I never finished lunch or dinner at the table while he was alive."

Laurie's eyes glistened. "How'd he die?"

"Some careless asshole with a car. He was waiting for me…" Sasori blinked a little more quickly than usual. "I didn't see it. But he always waited for me. His fur was still so soft under the tire marks."

Laurie's heart broke. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. A few tears dripped down her face to water the floor.

Sasori's eyes refocused. "I promise," he vowed as he took her hand, "you will never die because of me. I'll be around. I'll keep you safe." His hand curled around hers tight, his voice firm with promise. "For Rusty's sake. He's the first one I ever had to look after."

**General**

"Hey, guys. This is Laurie. My coworker." Sasori introduced the slim girl with long brown hair to the assembled group. She waved shyly and wondered which was Hidan.

"Hey!" Deidara waved back. _Oh no why is she here, hm? I still don't know if I can…_ He glanced in the direction of the clay bird in the garage. _I can't, yeah…_ He was getting no sleep tonight.

"Hello," Konan bowed her head at the girl. "It's good for you to be concerned, Sasori. No telling who the demon will attack out of anger."

Laurie sputtered. "Yeah, that's exactly why - yeah." _Is she always paranoid, or - wait._ Laurie didn't see any other women around. "Wait, are you the one who broke into his house?"

"Yes, yes I did," Konan acknowledged. "It was for the purpose of borrowing one thing, which was returned to him later that day unharmed. I'm putting some strategies in place to make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Like what?" Kakuzu raised an eyebrow.

Konan looked around. "Where's Hidan?"

Kisame scowled. "Hopefully with Same. They'd better get back soon."

"What's happening?" Laurie asked of Sasori.

"This is why I don't like huge groups," he replied. "They get off track so easily."

"Never mind that," Konan raised her voice. There was quiet. "There are spare rooms. You may stay however long you wish. In the meantime…"

She performed the introductions for Laurie. Nagato and Yahiko were introduced as a single unit. Laurie wondered why, but waved cheerfully at Yahiko, who waved back just as cheerfully. Yahiko thought she must be a good person. Maybe he could be friends with her too.

When the introductions were completed, Konan looked sternly at everyone. "There should be some systematic way of sharing information. I've noticed this group tends to get confused and split topics easily. That is not efficient."

"Let's elect someone who knows most of what's newsworthy to be in charge," Nagato suggested.

There was nodding around the room. Konan looked around. "I agree, but the obvious problem is how to figure out who knows the most."

"Have you seen the chat?" She nodded yes. "Okay. That's good. Ow." Yahiko had prodded him in the ribs painfully. Nagato rubbed his ribs and hesitantly raised a hand. "Per Yahiko's insistence, I'm also nominating myself. Apparently."

Konan would never have thought of anything else. Being in charge with Nagato was what was natural. _Not this Nagato._ That hurt. She said nothing and moved on to, "Very well. Has everyone here seen the chat?"

Yahiko raised his hand. "I haven't. My job gives us lockers to put our phones and things in. Why is there chatting?"

The majority of eyeballs in the room migrated to Nagato. He turned a little red and regretted his previous decision immediately. Konan's heart did a double beat. This new instance reminded her somehow of all the other things Yahiko hadn't been made privy to. _Not this Nagato. _The déjà vu remained, images of other times wavering in front of her eyes.

Nagato cleared his throat. "I didn't want you to worry, or for it to be weird. I thought it would be better if we had a mostly normal hangout, not, like, an emergency one." His conscience was not appeased. He cleared his throat again and went on. "I got a call from Sasori. He'd met the succubus. She was very angry, and very dangerous, and she'd left and gone into town, so he wanted to warn everyone to get with other people and be prepared."

Yahiko got very worried, as Nagato had thought. "Oh no. Wait...this morning...was that her?"

"Yes," Nagato admitted. He put a hand on Yahiko's shoulder, shook him a little. "It was fine. You'd have been fine. Surprising silver lining to this aura of hers: she can't turn it off, even if she wants. That's why there was noise, because she was in female form and some guy was following along drawing attention. No danger at all in somewhere public."

Yahiko did his best to relax. "I think I'd rather have known. So, you know, I could have called someone. What if she'd gone to the back where I was?" His best was not enough. This was the second time in as many days that he'd come too close to death for his comfort, and somehow, even though he knew that technically the first time should have been worse because he'd been much closer, somehow this time was worse instead. Maybe it was holdover panic. _That demon kid was right. Like a lamb...I'm so helpless… All I could do was depend on him and Nagato. That doesn't feel good. It really doesn't. _His breath was fast and he couldn't seem to stop his hands from shaking.

Nagato swallowed. _I'm an asshole. _He squeezed Yahiko's shoulder and whispered, "Sorry," so softly that there was every chance Yahiko didn't hear him.

Itachi sympathized. "If it's any consolation, my choice of cover was rather poor," he consoled. "Some woman winked at me just before Sasori called, so I decided to take her up on it. I didn't even know if she was immune to the succubus' influence herself. I was fully caught in her aura, until the woman I was with hit me. If she hadn't done that, and I hadn't managed to come to my senses in that time, I wouldn't be here." His voice slowed and became more rigid, sounding almost mechanical by the last sentence. Only now did he fully consider what could have happened.

Laurie was shocked. "Me too! The incubus… Oh, god, it was like half my brain was just...turned off…" She shivered. "I couldn't..._anything…_"

This calmed Yahiko down. His own troubles, he didn't quite know what was the right thing to do. But someone else's troubles, those he could be firm and confident about. "I'm sorry you two had to go through that. This means -" He only paused for a second. "This means we have to do something about it. Before she hurts anyone else."

Most of the eyes moved to him. Konan's moved in the opposite direction. _That's the same voice he had then… Why was he this decisive about…_ She was still again, and said nothing. But that confidence brought up her worst memories.

"Like what?" Nagato managed to get out. _I love him even more when he's like this…_

"It's nice to hear you say that, but we do need to have some idea how to defeat a demon," Kakuzu followed. "Trivial little concerns."

"Oh, yeah," Yahiko giggled nervously. "I'm the ideas guy; Nagato handles the practical parts, usually. Or, Sasori maybe? Anything?"

Nagato looked to Konan. She was still, and he could see her looking very intently away from Yahiko. Her eyes darted around. He caught Deidara's eye. Deidara followed. "Oh, I have an idea, yeah," Dei started. Everything he remembered from during training came back. "Sasori said in the chat that she'd said some stuff about why she was mad, yeah? Was that all she said? And, wait, did Laurie say he'd shown up as an incubus?"

Sasori nodded. "Yeah. That happened later, just before I posted those emojis. It's a bit of a story."

Laurie looked at him sharply. "You said Hidan had angered it somehow, right? What'd he do?"

Sasori shook his head. "That's not what she was saying to me. What she said to me was all this other stuff, more general grievances she had about the state of the world. She was already mad. Hidan just gave her something to focus on, probably."

"He did _what?_" Kakuzu's fist tightened. "That little…"

"Her more general complaints," Sasori talked over him, "had to do with our world, I think. I mean, the world that our originals came from, and Konan. It's messing with the usual balance of supernatural things and how she lives and so on. She went on a rant about 'him.' I don't know who 'him' is, but she said something about a bubble and him escaping and taking over, I think. She blames us for bringing something over with us. Or someone."

Hearing it phrased like that was somehow worse than the half-remembered word for word recounting Sasori had tried to provide in the chat. There was silence. Yahiko tried to muster his courage again. "So…" He took a deep breath and shook himself. "Okay, so, same thing kind of. Find a way to stop her and do that. And then we just need to find out what she was talking about and stop_ that_. We can do that." He swallowed to moisten his throat. "Probably."

Konan had recovered and done her best to listen after Deidara started talking. She hadn't told him anything, but… And now, their lack of knowledge was scaring everyone. _Shit. I'm going to have to. _She sent a silent apology to Hidan, for speaking of what she was about to speak of.

"It's all right," she said. "The succubus was most likely speaking of something benign." She raised her hand against the response she knew she was receiving. "I'll explain what I mean in a moment."

Deidara's eyes grew wide. _She's finally going to say what she saw in the note? Yes!_

Konan considered only what was necessary for them to know. "Every shinobi here has the same abilities of their original. Hidan's abilities include immortality and the use of a ritual. _However,_" she emphasized, "those abilities are not his own. Original Hidan received those powers from the god he worshipped, Jashin-sama. If his clone in this world has the same powers, then that could only mean that Jashin-sama's influence has been extended in this world, at least that far. I have been assuming that Jashin-sama does not naturally have influence in this world, since this world seems unsuitable for his worship. Am I correct?"

Nagato and Yahiko, who both knew of the great variety of religious beliefs that existed, nodded. They would have remembered something that involved immortality.

"In that case, it makes sense that a demon would fear disruption in this world. Even if no more Jashinists appear, even if Hidan dies, who can know whether Jashin-sama's influence would return to its previous boundaries? It makes sense why she would fear that."

Konan turned to face everyone. "**But,**" she emphasized most of all, "Jashin-sama is not himself dangerous to humans. There is no reason to panic. That is a demon's worry only. I am forced to tell you this only to prevent panic."

_What the hell am I saying? _Konan knew she had no logical reason to be saying what she'd just said, in the tone she'd said it in. All the information she had on the Jashinist religion, from knowing Hidan, was that Jashin-sama's rules could be interpreted to mandate sacrificing people in the most painful ways possible. Of Jashin-sama's followers themselves, they seemed likely to be a bloodthirsty sort. In short, everything she could point to and use as evidence said Jashin-sama was a very dangerous god. And yet. And yet.

Konan's words finished echoing around the room. They had been strong, firm words, backed by the _knowledge_ that she was correct and lacking any corrosive uncertainty. Konan herself felt no urge to shrink from her words, no desire whatsoever to disavow them. She would stand by what she'd said, because she had utter faith in it. She had faith that Jashin-sama was more than she had seen him to be so far, was nothing so simple as an evil god. She had no reason to believe this, but she did. Konan did not believe Hidan's god was evil. He governed Hidan's every thought and effort, after all. To say that was as preposterous as saying that Hidan was evil.

_It's illogical to believe that he's not. He loves performing sacrifices. That's very...dark. _Was darkness evil? Did human sacrifices have any overall effect on the quality of the world? _The answer should be obvious. I wouldn't even be thinking about it if I wasn't dark too. _So she was biased. Or did she have more information, information on what darkness was like that regular people did not have access to? That had to be bias speaking. Konan pushed aside these questions and returned to the point at hand. The point at hand was her belief that Jashin-sama was benign. Konan found herself unwilling to retract it, especially after it had been said. _Which god am I hoping to that I'm right? _

Yahiko seemed to believe her. "Oh, that's great! I'm really not in the mood to fight a god. What kind is he? What does he do?"

_Dammit. _"I never had any opportunity to sit down with Original Hidan for an in-depth discussion of theology, so I'm not sure. I only know what he did to worship Jashin-sama, but not what it was supposed to accomplish or why he did it." _That should get them off my back. _She turned back to Sasori and Laurie, indicating that this topic was over and done with. "Does that match what you recall of her complaints?"

Sasori's mouth was hanging open. "That...makes almost too much sense." He looked around. "She called us supports for some kind of attachment point. That is the only thing I can think of which makes that make sense. Woah."

"Hmph. Doesn't change much. We were already under the assumption that she was going after us because she hated Hidan and saw us with him," Kakuzu pointed out.

Deidara looked around. "Does that mean she's going after him, yeah?"

"Don't think so," Sasori replied. "Like I said, she's going after us 'supports', hoping he'll leave by himself or something." It was so much easier to remember what she'd said now that he had a conceptual framework to stick it to. "Huh. Not everything makes sense according to that theory. But, she seems to think he's untouchable for some reason. That's clear enough."

Konan chuckled. "And he said she touched him." She looked at Laurie, who seemed very confused. Well, no wonder. "We were celebrating in the bar when Hidan approached the succubus. She touched him, she screamed, he kicked her in the genitals, people started bleeding, a chair disintegrated. It's almost funny to talk about now."

"I thought he kicked her in the genitals and then she screamed." That was Sasori's view.

"That wouldn't make sense. It does not hurt that much to be kicked in the genitals, not unless one is very sensitive to pain perhaps. Or if she was already at least partially male, but why would she have been?" Konan didn't think it hurt enough for such loud screaming, at least. It had been full-on wailing that had filled the bar.

"Seriously, where is Hidan? And Same?" Kisame asked uneasily. "It's been a while. It has to be dark by now."

Konan sent out paper butterflies immediately. Laurie was wowed, but too worried to fully enjoy the sight. "He's probably okay...right?"

Nagato's heart knocked against his ribs. He almost left Yahiko's side to go and look (_oh gods he'd better be_), but a butterfly came back. Konan visibly relaxed. "He is well. So is Samehada."

Laurie looked around, eager to get her first glimpse of the guy who walked right up to a demon like it was nothing. And who could Samehada be? So she was very surprised when, from somewhere behind the group, a large black mass slid between people's legs and came rushing up to her feet. It proceeded to sprout a tongue and lick at her hand. Laurie almost jumped back in fright, but the licking reminded her of a pet dog she'd had once. Kisame chuckled.

"Sorry I'm late, guys. Sammy wanted to know everything, but then it got dark, but he felt so excited I just had to go on." Laurie looked up. Behind Konan stood a fairly tall guy with muscular shoulders unconcealed by any kind of shirt and medium length white hair slicked back over his head. He looked cheerful and had his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, almost licking his lips. His pink eyes were wide open and sparkling. They went really well with the red thing peeking over his shoulder. Laurie noticed a few strands of hair loose from the rest and hanging down near his ears. His ears looked great, too. Her mouth hung open. _No wonder he got a god's favor. He deserves it. He's...he's hot. _Laurie could be pretty sure he was not an incubus, because this time she was able to close her mouth and try not to gawk at him too obviously.

His eyes landed on her, and she felt some heat rise in her face. Hopefully it wasn't too obvious. His smile dropped. "Aw, shit."

Laurie blinked. _What? _

Konan looked sideways at him. "What is it?"

He met her eyes and sighed. Rubbing behind his right ear, he explained, "I thought of something for that thing you wanted me to think of something for, and I was planning it for tonight. But, shit, it's...kind of personal." He was obviously avoiding saying too much. "Not the sort of thing I'd want to talk about in front of...y'know...someone who's not a ninja and doesn't have any originals."

Konan's eyes widened. "Ah. That is...important." She reached up to pet him on the head. All negative feelings vanished as Hidan's eyes fluttered closed and he leaned in, purring. Konan's resolve firmed. "Well then."

She stopped petting him and looked at Nagato's chest, the closest she had ever come to looking directly at Yahiko. "That makes it all the more important that we do the smart thing and confront the demon, as soon as possible." She remembered the workweek structure as it had been explained to her. "Today is Wednesday, yes? That means two more days in which everyone would, normally, be scattered for the majority of the day. That can't happen."

Her face tightened. Deidara knew that as the look of someone preparing to go to war. "We must defeat this demon _tomorrow._"

Deidara raised his hand. Instead of acknowledging him, she turned to Hidan. "How is a demon defeated?" she asked.

Hidan looked at her blankly. "The obvious way…? Restrain them, hit them until their souls collapse, deal with the essence that remains." He looked up, but found nothing more to add. "Seriously, why are you even asking?"

Konan petted him instead of answering. "Because you're very kind," she whispered in his ear. Hidan probably didn't hear it in all his purring.

Laurie couldn't believe what she was seeing. _Did she see? Is she trying to…?_ She looked around. Kakuzu rolled his eyes. Deidara smiled. Nagato stared wistfully. Yahiko looked like it was the cutest thing ever. They all looked like this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Laurie looked back. _Or maybe I'm just that much of an outsider._

Sasori yawned and nudged her arm. "We have two rooms unoccupied on this floor, or any room you like on the second. Any preferences?"

"Um...no." She turned away from Hidan and Konan and followed Sasori to the back of the hotel, where she selected the near room as her temporary sleeping space. They'd stopped somewhere to eat on the way back, correctly figuring that there would be another big meeting after today, so Sasori wished her a good night and left for his own room on the opposite side of the building.

Laurie sighed and wished she hadn't seen Hidan. It was all too clear how much of a stranger she was now. A stranger in a strange house. It was a long time before she got comfortable, and longer still before she got to sleep.

**Hidan**

After the wonderful, delicious petting, Konan led Hidan to her room. As she opened the door, she told him in a very serious tone that he was here only for purposes of strategizing. "In order to take down a demon in less than one full day, we will need a ridiculous amount of planning and arbitrary number of miracles," she informed him.

Hidan was pretty sure that wasn't the correct use of the word arbitrary, but felt nothing like arguing the point. He did feel like pointing out to Konan, "Can you give me a sec? I need to go talk to someone real quick."

She blinked at him in confusion before those words fully processed. "Don't take too long," she requested. Hidan took off at a sprint, racing down the hallway to the other side of the base where Sasori's room was. He didn't know yet if he felt good or bad about her reason for asking that, but she had asked and he wanted to spend time with her anyway, so he would.

Sasori was coming up from where he'd left Laurie. Hidan went up to him at a jog. Sasori kept walking, but invited Hidan to walk beside him. "What is it?" he mumbled.

"Hey," Hidan began. "Konan wants me to help her with strategy-making starting now, so I'm not available for a while. Could ya tell Laurie that I can't really have any kind of relationship now? I just don't have time, and she's not my type. I'd let her down easy myself, but…"

Sasori's pace slowed. "I...will tell her if you're still unavailable in the morning." He sped back up to normal.

"Great! Thanks puppet-boy." Hidan gave him a light smack on the shoulder, then took off running back to Konan. She was sitting on the edge of her bed like a cooling lump of molten metal, and seemed not to hear him when he came in. Hidan shut the door behind him and walked around to her side carefully.

When she did notice him, she did not startle. "Ah. There you are." She somehow managed to stand. "This town is a poor place for a battle, but…" She shrugged.

Hidan walked a little closer to her in case something happened. "You don't have to work yourself into the ground or anything," he said kindly. His eyes suddenly seemed to have a lot of trouble focusing. Hidan refused to let them close, fought the urge to sit down. "I gotcha."

Konan shook her head. "This is, memory-wise, your first battle. I should supervise. I do best as a lookout."

Hidan stifled a yawn. "Okay. That's cool. You can do that." He stamped the floor to give himself focus and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Konan and holding her tightly in an embrace. She went slack once he had his arms fully around her as if it had given her permission. Hidan almost dropped her, but put one foot forward for balance at the last moment. His heartbeat was slowed, and he came within inches of following her off the cliff of consciousness. He came back (just barely) when she was mostly on the ground, almost sitting with his arms holding the upper half of her body up. Hidan found that one of his arms had gotten beneath her knees (_When?_) and then he was standing up (_How?_) and he stumbled forward and laid her on the bed. After that much was accomplished, he would have to get her legs fully on the bed. It happened. Hidan didn't remember how.

_Fuck...this means...I have to do it now. Can't stay here. _He faceplanted into the corner of her bed, waking himself up. _That helped. Thanks._ He got up and made his way out into the hall, then decided it would help him think to be up on the roof.

_Sweet fuck, it does!_ The cool night air was more effective in his nose than a line of coffee in his veins would have been. Hidan breathed deeply and broke out growling. This was _hunting weather. The wind filled with scents. Warm breathing scents. Spring, leap, pounce. _Hidan licked his chops, then shook his head and swallowed back his drool. It _was_ hunting weather. More specifically, succubus season. He went over to the corner and pretended to be the top predator, surveying his territory. Where in that territory would his prey be found? Where would she hide, where would she run? Where would the beginning of the chase be, and the end? Hidan whispered something he wasn't aware of to the god of lions, whatever god that was, and asked the wind for his cat kin's strength.

.

**A/N: Before I started this subplot, before I knew about Laurie, before I knew this subplot was going to happen, even before I started writing down this fic at all, I knew Sasori had a kitty. I did not know what his name was, but I knew he was red, and soft, and the best kitty ever, and that he was the first living thing Sasori had to take care of, and he _did._ He took care of him _so well_. *sniff* Any relation to that red blanket from a few chapters ago is coincidental, okay? I just knew the general sort of sensory stimuli that Sasori liked, and that's why his kitty and blanket are both like that.**

**In other news, I feel you Hidan. Big scene, important, I have plans for it. And it all has to be delayed because there's no way it can happen with Laurie in the way. But then...it would've gotten tangled with the end of this subplot if it did happen now, so it's really for the best that it's delayed until after they get the succubus. I'll call her a blessing in disguise. **


	28. The Plan

**A/N: This arrangement's kind of awkward. Last chapter and this one kind of ran together, so my choice of ending and starting location is pretty arbitrary. Action starts next chapter. Enjoy.  
**

**.**

**Konan**

_The ice rumbled, shaking itself apart beneath her feet. Konan held on as tightly as she dared, wobbling first on one leg, then the other. The ice split the air with a sharp keening sound. It was screaming, a scream lost to the roar of the rushing water. Something rose, throwing the ice up in a swell to Konan's left. She fell hard, cracking the ice on her right. The swelling passed through again, widening all the cracks. They burst open into full rivers, rivers of tar. Konan could not escape. The heart of the world beat again, swelling all the cracks to bursting and causing that tarry blood to gush forth in torrents. It beat again, and again. The ice split directly underneath Konan and there was no way but down. _

_It was loud, so loud. Konan had never imagined paper could be this loud. She'd always thought it uniquely suited to her because of its quiet, unassuming nature. But now she witnessed the true, awesome power of billions upon billions of explosive tags blasting the world to pieces around her. Amegakure was too far away, the lake not visible from here. She would never return home. The walls of paper closed in on her, and Konan did nothing but continue falling. _

_The paper hit her like a mute button had been pressed, and the sound instantly stopped. It was so quiet, she began to hear on the edge of her hearing the sound of silence. The paper pressed against her, heated and pressing like a mother's womb. A bright heart-light filled Konan's vision. She had never seen how beautiful explosive tags were, how intricately they were drawn. Why hadn't she? Probably for the same reason she'd never heard that amazing sound before. It sounded like home. Konan mourned as she found a firmness, a place where the paper pressed harder than elsewhere, and took it. It was a way out._

_The paper fell away. Pain pulled her from the heap with a great heave of his muscles. They stood on the broken rock where Jiraiya-sensei had died. The paper disappeared, flowing away down the hole where Jiraiya-sensei had been stabbed at the end. Konan heard a muffled heartbeat in the chest she was pressed against. Pain looked down as impassive as always. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards. So, he'd finally become what he was always meant to be. Nagato and Yahiko's true union. His hair was like a blood orange, and the outer two rings of the Rinnegan framed his warm brown eyes. _

_A great warmth spread through Konan's chest to see this. She stood to meet him, pulling upwards on the kunai she was holding. She'd always been holding a kunai. She'd forgotten about it. Pain hadn't forgotten; he couldn't have. The edge of it scraped against bone. Konan looked down and saw the great warmth spreading over her chest and his. He patted her on the head and followed the paper down the hole, draining away. Konan looked down at the kunai. It was a Hiraishin kunai. _

_The kunai teleported itself away, leaving her hands empty aside from cool red liquid. Konan leaned forward and took a cautious sip of it. She gagged, stumbling back. Jiraiya-sensei had left behind a bottle of sake once. It was a trap; the smallest sip of that bitter fire would instantly summon the monster. Konan tried to spit it out, reset the trap, but it was too late. The hole was overfilled. Everything it had ever held came gushing back up. Jiraiya sensei. Nagato and Yahiko. Blood spurted from the hole as it gurgled and heaved. Konan backed away from the acid, from the stench of sickness. She stumbled back on the Amegakure lake. Her legs would not listen to her command, would not find sure footing. She tripped over a crack in the lake and went sprawling. A crack? Too late, she understood that it had been a bad idea to retreat to the lake. The salt in the blood was drying it, turning the lake from liquid to solid. Another crack in the salt opened, opening a long wound down the side of her leg. Blood flowed into the wound. She tried to avoid taking it in, she really did. _

_But it seemed to be rather hungry. _

**Kakuzu**

Kakuzu reached up and grabbed the wrist of whoever was shaking his shoulder back and forth, squeezing tightly enough to grind wrist bones together. It wasn't even hard. He might have accidentally broken the wrist in question if its owner hadn't swatted him lightly on the head and started complaining. "Yeesh, come _on _already. It's important. Get the fuck up!"

Kakuzu opened his eyes and let Hidan go. Hidan took his wrist back and looked at it carefully, pressing in several different spots to find out if anything was broken or out of place. He either didn't find anything or didn't care, because he turned back to Kakuzu and made another gesture to follow him. "Come on, sleepybones. Important day, remember? I need to ask ya about some shit."

Kakuzu had found himself unwillingly doing some strategizing of his own after falling into bed. What he would do about the succubus, what he could do, what the others might do. It was great to be thinking like that before a battle, but _not when he was trying to sleep_. Because of that Kakuzu had gotten to sleep late and was now waking late as a result. Late, in this case, meant at dawn.

He glared at Hidan, but was secretly grateful. It was best to have a consistent sleep schedule, after all. In gratitude, he pulled on his mask and followed Hidan out to the backyard silently, and did not ask what this was for until they were standing in the dim light of dawn.

Hidan grinned and rubbed his hands together like the sunrise that was behind him. "Aw shit, you'll love it when I get around to telling ya! But first, I had a thing I wanted to ask about. It's part of the strategy for today, promise."

Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. Hidan went on. "So I was thinking, for the strategy, of what kind of things everyone could do, and I remembered something. Didn't Konan tell you that you had tentacles or something inside you that time?"

_Tentacles? _Kakuzu thought back. "Huh. You're right. Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember her saying something about that." He fixed Hidan with a stern glare and growled, "I also remember thinking that was _bullshit._"

"Huh?" Hidan was not intimidated at all, just puzzled.

"You heard me." Kakuzu snorted. "Tentacles. Really? She thinks that I'll believe I somehow managed to overlook something like that in my over 90 years of living in this body?" He crossed his arms and shook his head. "Not likely. Our memories might not be real, but at least they're normal. Even if we didn't understand what it meant before, we all knew that we _had_ strange features. Kisame didn't suddenly realize he looked like a shark, he's known that this whole time. If I had tentacles, I would know about them, wouldn't I?"

Then Kakuzu got angry. "Besides, if I did have tentacles, and if they were taking up all the space inside me, then I wouldn't have room for normal organs. I'd be -" He stamped his foot. "Claiming that is the same as outright accusing me of being inhuman! I would be -" He swept a powerful fist out to his side. "I'd be like some kind of esoteric tentacle monster that you might find in the likes of hentai. Who does she think she is, to tell me I somehow managed to miss being something like that?!"

He returned his arms to their folded position. "In short, I don't believe that for a second. I haven't even bothered to think of that since she first said it. I don't bother with lies." He challenged Hidan silently with his burning green eyes to refute this.

Hidan looked somewhere off into the distance. "That...would pretty cool if you were some kind of hentai tentacle monster, actually." _What? Is he saying...what the hell?! _

Hidan shook his head like a dog shaking off water. "Not in _that _way, like...not that! I just meant it'd be awesome and so fucking useful if you are." He stared Kakuzu straight in the eyes. "We _need_ you to be some kind of tentacle monster, Kakuzu. We _all_ do. If luck turns your way in today's battle, you could save lives with that shit."

He sounded disturbingly inspirational. Kakuzu imagined stirring orchestral music for a second in there. _What the hell? _Kakuzu moved his mouth, but no sound came out.

Hidan smiled again, and the illusion was broken. He was back to looking like a little boy. "See, it has to do with that strategy I said," he explained. "It would be good to hold the succubus lady still so we can beat her more easily and she can't cause trouble. Sasori's good for that because he has strings, but if there's one thing I've learned from monster movies, it's that you shouldn't have only one guy on the most important part of a job. So I really fucking hope you have tentacles, because if he can't get a good opening or something it'd be real nice to have backup."

He held up a finger to point something out. "And, before you say 'but I don't think I have tentacles,' neither did Itachi. Not tentacles, but those awesome eyes he's got. Those need chakra, and we never used chakra before. If you do have tentacles, Konan said they'd be inside where you can't see 'em, and if you never used chakra they'd just be sitting there, and how would you know something was inside you if it just sat there? So you have a definite maybe on the chance of having tentacles."

Kakuzu clenched his fists, but said nothing. The idea of being some kind of..._monster_ struck him as utterly abhorrent. But, aside from his feelings about it, he couldn't find any logical reason with which to deny it. Even his own observations that morning when Sasori had discovered the break in betrayed him now. _Ugh. So, what, he _wants_ me to be…? _He'd never imagined Hidan to be so disgusting either.

Hidan sensed resistance, and put on his 'in charge' face again. "Kakuzu, I could walk around all alive and shit, perfectly fine, with all my guts hanging out. I could have all kinds of things done to me, all my organs out, whatever. You're not special, and if anyone's going to think you're creepy for having tentacles they'll have to go through me. Now, you need to stop freaking out, accept that you'd be a freak anyway just like the rest of us so it doesn't matter, and concentrate some fucking chakra around those stitches on your arm. Can you do that or not?"

Kakuzu was again silent. His eyes searched Hidan's. _Where did this come from? _Hidan's pink eyes looked deeper, almost purple, and glistened with focus. _What has she done to him? _The younger man silently challenged him back. _...Is he worth listening to? _

Kakuzu was the first to relent. He took off his outer shirt and took a long look at the stitches around his forearm. They looked suspicious, almost sinister. He narrowed his eyes and channeled chakra down into his arm. He channeled quite a bit of chakra in an effort to get this over with, and several of his stitches unraveled, living thread escaping and leaving behind holes in his skin. It froze in the air a split second later when Kakuzu froze his chakra in horror. He also jumped and raised his other hand to cover it. He may have also given a short grunt along the lines of "Ah!"

Hidan snickered. "See, that's awesome! Do it again!"

Kakuzu clamped his hand down firmly over the offending thread (it tickled his hand. He clamped harder) and glared at Hidan. _I will not. _He slowly shook his head to emphasize this point.

Hidan huffed. "Fine. Be that way." He looked out into the forest. "But could you be that way after you get at least enough control to hold a person, please? You can be all alone, nobody has to be looking. And I won't tell anyone you jumped. I'll, uh...send Sammy to find you when we need ya. That'll work, yeah?" He gave Kakuzu a look that said it'd better.

Kakuzu gave his chakra an experimental wiggle. The thread moved back and forth across his hand. He suppressed a shiver. Now that he thought about it, he'd considered before if his stitches were chakra activated. He'd thought about testing it, but just...never gotten around to. Looked for other things to do. Made excuses. He sighed in a very aggravated manner. _Damn you, Hidan. _

Hidan smiled. "Awesome! You always sigh like that before agreeing with me. Give me a hug!" He gave Kakuzu a hug anyway. "Don't worry, this'll be cool. I'll show ya. You'll see."

Hidan left, confident that Kakuzu had heard all he needed to. Kakuzu's eye twitched. _That little…_ He turned and stalked out of the backyard, into a place he had discovered which was fairly good for being alone in.

**General**

"Big day today! Wake the fuck up!" Hidan yelled into Kisame's room. He shut the door and proceeded down the rest of the hall, yelling variations of the same into everyone's rooms. He passed his room and was about to use the cross hallway to go to Yahiko, Nagato and Deidara, when he was struck by a brilliant idea. _I love me. I am a fucking genius. _He had his Akatsuki cloak on when he made his stops to wake up those three. "Meeting in the sunroom!"

After some consideration, he knocked on Laurie's door too. "Hey! Got plans to deal with the demon! Come on, we're having a meeting!" She mumbled incoherently and did not move. He knocked on the open door again. "No, seriously, you're the only one who doesn't know where the sunroom is. I'll have to take you. Wake up, it'll be awesome."

She cracked open one eye and was instantly awake. _Where did he get those clothes? _She'd never imagined it was possible for someone to look hotter with clothes on than off, but he did. Maybe the cloak had magical powers. She sat up, brushed her hair out of her eyes, and eagerly followed him out into the hall.

"By the way," Hidan said as they went, "I have like no time for any other relationships. Also, I like people who have power over me, who can kick my ass. So you're not really my type. Sorry."

Laurie turned red and squeaked. Hidan muttered, "Oh shit." He elbowed her to get her attention back. "By the way, I can feel other people's feelings. That's how I knew. I don't mind feeling it, I just don't want ya to get all hurt."

"Oh." She was silent the rest of the way.

Hidan walked into the sunroom like a king. He was greeted like the world's most incompetent town criar. He did not mind in the slightest. "All you guys are here? Awesome! I got stuff to present." He didn't actually. He had no materials, nothing visual, so it was more of a speech than a presentation. Accuracy shmaccuracy.

"Why are you calling a meeting?" Nagato asked. _Yahiko and I need to get cloaks like those. Black and orange…_ He swallowed back any excess saliva that may have appeared in his mouth.

Hidan grinned at him. "Because Konan passed the fuck out _finally_ and left the strategy planning for me, that's why. She'll wake up whenever the fuck she wants today." He looked around at tired faces which were steadily gaining interest. "Did I mention I thought of a strategy? Because I totally thought of a strategy."

"Where's Kakuzu?" Yahiko asked.

"I already talked to him about training something important that's part of the strategy."

"Just tell us about it already," Kisame snapped.

"Sure!" Hidan bounced up and down. "Okay, so, basically, since the best way to handle a succubus is strength in numbers, I thought all of us would be going after her at once today."

"I already called off earlier this week…" Yahiko murmured. "That could be difficult for some of us."

"We are the only two people who work there regularly," Sasori noted. "But I'd rather be fired than have anyone hurt on my watch, so go ahead." Laurie seconded that.

"Well, do whatever you guys have to do," Hidan said. "Gonna have to be quick to get her today, or else it'll be two work days messed with. More incentive to get busy."

"So what are we going to be quick doing?" Nagato urged.

Hidan clapped. "Well, I realized something important about the fact that we're all going to be there. Since we've got more people that are into women than people who are not, that means if everyone's going after her, she's gonna have to stay in succubus form just to keep from getting creamed."

Itachi asked, "But what if she realizes you've expected this and deliberately acts otherwise?"

"I thought of that," Hidan barely managed to edge out around a grin so overpowering his face threatened to split. His cheeks finally hurt enough for him to stop it. "Get to that later."

He made a shoving that aside gesture. "But the main strategy will be centered around our small team of people that aren't into ladies. That would be Sasori, Konan, someone else, and wait, do you want to do anything?" This last was directed at Laurie. "I was kinda thinking of the rest of us, but if you can do anything and want to that'd be fine."

Laurie straightened unconsciously. "Um...I know some hand to hand stuff, and I've been sparring with Sasori." She gestured between herself and her coworker. "I know I'm out of my league with actual ninjas here, but maybe if I partnered with him? He's terrible at that stuff. No offense."

"Sure." Hidan shrugged. "Doesn't make much of a difference, seeing as how once we get to the actual fighting, step one's going to be to get her captured. That means getting her in Sasori's reach since he has the strings. Basically everyone's going to partnered with him for that."

"Once we get to the actual fighting?" Deidara quoted. "Did...did you actually think of stuff beyond that, yeah?" Hidan rose several notches in his estimation. Likewise in Itachi's.

"Fuck to the shit yes." Hidan put his hand on his chin. "The entire point is to _not_ let her hurt people, so we shouldn't be fighting in town, and I don't want to be fighting and spilling blood and doing damage around here, so I was thinking we move her somehow to those abandoned houses west of town. That sound good?"

Itachi hmm'd. "That choice of terrain opens up interesting possibilities."

Hidan looked to him. "Seriously? I was just thinking of keeping people out of the cross fireballs. What possibilities?"

Itachi stared at the floor. "If we could set up something very simple and quick to execute, a maze of abandoned houses is perfect for traps or ambushes."

Hidan put his hand on his chin again. "I don't know how to steer her with great precision, and I've heard that saying about no plan going right when it starts, so I don't like traps. As for ambushes, that might be a good idea _if _she realizes what you said earlier, and _after _she starts trying to change into an incubus to be confusing. 'Cause then, planning to keep her in one form will have gone belly up. But I think keeping her in one form is better so we should try that first. We got…" He counted. "Ten people, and I'm not gonna be there, so actually nine. We need everyone to keep her a girl."

Itachi nodded. "Sound reasoning."

"You're not going to be there?" Laurie asked.

"When I said I like anybody who's impressive and pretty, I meant _anybody_. I'm useless no matter what form she's in," Hidan explained. "I'll be off somewhere watching, probably. No way in fuck I'm going to stay out of it. But I won't be able to fight."

Nagato turned red, realized he was doing so, and blurted out, "So how are you planning to move her there?" before anyone could notice.

"Um…" That was one part Hidan hadn't quite figured out yet. "I don't have exactly how figured out, but I want to shoo her there somehow. Like lions. You ever seen a documentary where one lion runs after the prey, and another one leaps out from the side so it goes the other way, and they have another one there waiting for it? Like that, except only the first two and then she'll be in the houses."

"Cool, so you've got a place picked out and everything!" Yahiko thought that was brilliant. "How's the actual _thing_ gonna go?"

"We'd be _fucked _if it wasn't for Sasori," Hidan started. "Fucked fucking _sideways_. I said it before, how we've got to get her captured. That's some important shit! So, Sasori can move around and try to get a good position, and Konan'll be like an eye in the sky keeping a watch over everything because she told me last night she does better in a support kind of role like that, and anyone else who can function fight her and try to get her into a good position for Sasori. That's the first part."

Deidara raised his hand. "Uhhh…" He yawned before he could say anything.

Laurie said, "Are you okay? Those are some dark bags under your eyes."

Deidara slumped back and said, "Yeah." He rubbed his eyes. "I was training my explosive clay moves with Konan yesterday, and I made a bird, but it's huge and I don't know how to defuse it so it's still in the garage, yeah." He yawned again. "What Hidan just said about eyes in the sky reminded me. I couldn't sleep because I was worried I might blow it up in my dreams, so I'm wiped, but I can still fly. Maybe if I can't see her clearly I'll be able to be okay, hm."

Hidan smacked a fist into his opposite hand. "That's fucking brilliant! Hey, Dei, how far away can you blow something up from?"

"I don't know." Dei suppressed another yawn. _Why's he so excited all of a sudden, yeah? _

"Well…" Hidan grumbled. "Okay, so we'll have to take some time to figure out a couple things before we go out. We gotta figure out how high up you have to be so that you can follow someone but not see 'em clearly, and we gotta find out if you can blow shit up from that high. Because if you can, that's _fucking amazing _for getting her over to the houses in the first place like we were just talking about!"

Dei's eyes widened. Not much, but enough. "Oh, damn." _I...could be useful blowing stuff up. And without even really hurting anyone, hm. It's perfect! _

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan felt like dancing. "Did I mention that Konan's going to be the one in charge of finding her? Because she's good at that shit. So Konan finds her, Deidara gets her to the place, Sasori holds her, and then...um...does anyone actually know how to beat her? I thought if Konan was suggesting this _someone_ had to have figured it out." He looked around.

Nagato pointed out, "You did. Last night. You said her soul would collapse if she was hurt enough."

"I did?" Hidan scratched behind his ear. "Well...that sounds really fucking weird, but yeah! Let's go with that! Kakuzu says when I say really weird stuff that I don't remember saying, it's either right or he never found out if it was right or not, so I'm willing to trust I was right."

Nagato gulped. "You don't remember saying that?" His tone of voice indicated that this was a problem. Everyone looked at him. "Because...the idea of just hurting someone until something happens sounds like torture to me, and I'm not willing to have a part of that, so I was really hoping you'd elaborate on what you meant." He had a look of dread on his face.

That quieted the mood in the room at once. There was a minute of silence as everyone looked around at everyone else, mostly at Hidan. _I'm not willing to do that either, _they silently agreed. _If nobody can…_

_This could sink everything, _Hidan realized. He hadn't thought about this at all. And now they were all looking at him. _Uhhhhhh….._ He scrambled. "Uhh…" _Crapity. _He had to say something. They were all looking. All those eyes. Hidan began to panic. _Say something say something _He smacked the heel of his hand against his head. "Uh, uh, uh, collapsing her soul, collapsing her soul, collapsing her soul, uh, hit her enough, uh, restraint, uh, demon demon demon, uh, soul…" He continued rambling, producing incoherent syllables. _What what what _"Piss her the fuck off and squeeze her really tight and put salt on her!" he yelled.

He then bent almost double, sitting on the floor with his head bent over his lap and his hands squeezing his head as if his brain would explode. _Ow. Ow. Ow. What do I do? _He had no idea. _Ow. _Why did his head hurt all of a sudden?

No one quite knew what to make of this. Yahiko shuffled over and rubbed Hidan's shoulder. "Hey," he prodded. "We can do that. It's fine." He looked back to Nagato. Nagato shrugged. _I don't know either! _Yahiko looked back at Hidan, who was now looking up at him.

"Do what?" Hidan rubbed his head and winced.

"What you just said?" Yahiko answered.

"What?" Hidan winced again. "I hadn't thought of anything, and I kinda panicked, and I didn't think of anything and now my head hurts. What saying what?"

Yahiko stared. "Um…" But some things started to seem like they could make sense if they were put together the right way. "You don't usually know any of the weird things, or else you would remember them. But you don't, so maybe the normal part of your mind doesn't know? So then, if you start panicking and you can't think normally…" He shrugged. "That means you probably came up with more weird but accurate things, right? Is that how it works?"

Hidan's ears pricked forward towards Yahiko. "What'd I say?"

"You said we should make her angry, and squeeze her tightly, and pour salt on her," Yahiko recounted.

"Oh." Hidan was glad his head hurt too much to remember exactly what Yahiko had been talking about before that. "Well...bad folklore things hate salt, and agitating her could do something to a soul maybe, and physical stuff...It makes sense. Let's go with it." _Oh thank fuck someone came up with something! I hope I didn't just pull it out of my ass because I was freaking out._

Sasori noted, "She hates me. That should be easy."

Dei blinked himself awake more. "Maybe a bunch of us should carry the salt, yeah. And a bunch of salt. Who knows how much we'll need?"

Itachi cleared his throat. "The logistics should be easy. But you said you had some thoughts for if she does anticipate us?"

"Oh...yeah." Hidan was still feeling really good, but the inevitable letdown was coming. "Basically the same, except then everyone else would be able to pitch in whenever she's not female. Also, I already asked Kakuzu to go out back and see what he can get those tentacles Konan mentioned to do. Just in case he gets a chance, he could be another guy who can hold her still, because y'always need backups." Something occurred to Hidan just then. "I didn't think of a backup for Konan, but if Deidara was fine he could fly lower and do similar stuff. It'll probably be fine."

That took care of anything anyone else could think of. Hidan smiled and bounced in place again. "See, I told you guys I was more than just a pretty shirtless guy!" He saw agreement in everyone's eyes, and his own sparkled. _I'm useful! I am. _He couldn't wait for Konan to wake up, to hear and see and feel what she thought.

Sasori glared at him in a friendly way. "Don't get a swelled head. You completely forgot something. It doesn't happen to be a problem, but still." He told them of the succubus coming back at lunchtime the previous day, still angry at him. "And we would both have been screwed if the incubus' powers weren't so weak. The hypnosis was enough for me to handle. If his powers included making people caught in them actually do anything, I might not have been able to hold her." Sasori shrugged. "They don't, so it's fine, but I thought your plan making skills should include looking at what you're not saying. What you didn't say was what everyone else who was caught in her aura would be doing. This time the answer's nothing, but…" Hidan nodded eagerly. Next time it might not be, and he didn't want anyone to be hurt because of him either. _Note to self: Check your assumptions. _

With that, the meeting concluded.

.

**A/N: "No plan survives contact with the enemy." I have no idea who or where that quote is from, but that's what Hidan means. (Edit: it's the short version of an old quote from some 19th century Prussian military commander.)**

**I had _so much fun _writing that dream sequence, can you tell? I regard it as the best dream sequence so far. Love it love it love it. **

**I originally had Kakuzu investigate his stitches for himself because I forgot that he'd been told in a previous chapter, but this way is actually better, I think. Makes more sense. Thank you, Past Me.**

**Last day of freedom approaches, but I already have the next chapter written so it's all good. Action. Flirtation. Excitement. Intrigue. We're getting to the good part.**


	29. The Setup

**A/N: I actually did look this up once. Vrrrrrroooommm!  
**

**.**

**Itachi**

Itachi went with Yahiko to the kitchen, where they retrieved the small amount of salt somebody had gotten for their use. Nagato excused himself to go check on Konan, so they were pretty much alone.

"I haven't read much about folklore or mythical monsters. Have you?" Yahiko inquired.

"A little," Itachi replied. "Hidan was right. Salt is regarded to be a powerful substance which can keep away every kind of evil spirit, fairy, or demon I've heard of. Silver also works, but that would be difficult to acquire. Have you ever heard of knocking on wood?"

"Yeah. But I don't know what that's for."

"I looked it up once. I found two explanations for it: either the knocking is supposed to rouse the tree's spirits, which are friendly, or it is meant to drive away any evil spirits that might be listening in."

"Cool! Anything else that might be helpful?"

Itachi shrugged. "I know nothing specific. There's only so much we can do anyway."

Yahiko looked around. "You know...that sounds believable."

"What does?"

"That trees have good spirits. I mean, they're trees. Of course they're friendly." Yahiko knew this to be as close to fact as he could get. "That's...more believable than demons. I saw one, but I still have a hard time…"

Itachi nodded. "I don't know exactly what you mean. Personally, I regard most things as being likely, even if they never happen, so it's hard for me to understand skepticism. But, even if I can't empathize, I think I could logically understand. It's like bringing yourself to jump off something tall. It's only one action, but that action is so hard to start."

"Once I start, where does it end?" Yahiko finished. "I just don't want to believe in bad things. I was the first one to suggest there might be angels too when she came back from meeting the demon, but monsters, I don't know. I know, I should get over it."

"No," Itachi thought, "you don't need to. It's part of who you are. You're kind, so it's easier to get along with the idea and the reality of things that are like you. You wouldn't be asked to deal with something so unsuited to you anyway, so it's alright."

Yahiko was struck by the idea. "But I should be able to…"

"You're not alone." Itachi wanted to elaborate, but that was all he could find to say.

Yahiko cradled his package of salt carefully in his arms. "My family died when I was young. I was 8. It was some kind of accident." Itachi noticed he was reflexively stroking the top of the package as if it were a child. "Ever since, I've wondered if even Nagato will be gone someday. I…" He didn't finish.

Itachi lifted his package and held it equally carefully. "He might. We all might. But the more there are, the less likely that all of us will be gone all at the same time. That's why finding people is lifelong."

Yahiko seemed unconvinced. "It was bad enough when Jiraiya couldn't stay. He was like a father to me. I don't think I'm strong enough."

"You seemed strong enough last night."

"That was different. That was _for _him." Yahiko protested. "I can be strong _for_ people, no problem. But…"

Itachi sighed. "I have a little brother. He's the last of my family. I've thought of what I would do if something happened to him."

Yahiko stopped stroking the package of salt. "What would you do?" he asked in the voice of a disciple seeking a wise sage.

Itachi tilted his head. He'd never spoken of this before. _How can I say it? Will he understand? _"Sometimes, I feel...a strange lack of agency over my life," he began. Yahiko was still enthralled. "Not the bad kind, as if I can change nothing. It's a good kind. More like… I am part of the world, and the world will keep rotating if Sasuke dies. Therefore, I will go on too, because there is no other way." _Close, but it doesn't seem like enough. How can I say…? _"The thought of having to force myself to go on is the hardest. That's where all the effort is. But if I know that I will anyway, just because that's how things happen, how the world turns, it's easier." _So inadequate. Not remotely enough. _

Yahiko took a sharp little inhale of breath. "That's why I do good things for people. Because I do. It's what I do, like how you said the world turns. Like that, huh?" He seemed struck. "_That… _So, if I… If that was how it felt if something happened... " Here he struggled, to connect this reasoning to the answer he wanted. "If that was how it felt...I...I'd want Nagato to be proud of me."

Itachi wondered aloud, "Are you religious?"

Yahiko shook his head. "I don't think so. Well, actually...that doing good things for people does seem to kind of sweep me up...but I'm not sure what that is. I'll find out." He seemed unsure of that.

Itachi wondered further, "What is this god of Hidan's like?"

**Deidara**

"Oi! Can you hear us up there?"

The words drifted up to Deidara's ears like thin, wispy smoke. _Mhm. A little. Enough. _It took a few seconds for it to register that he hadn't spoken aloud. He took another few seconds to gather enough breath to shout back, "Yeah!" _How can shouting be exhausting? Uhn, everything's exhausting. _Deidara made the bird take a steep dive down to the ground. There was too much risk of him falling asleep if he stayed up in the air. He still yawned as he hit the ground.

Hidan patted him on the back. His eyes dulled and he backed off quickly. "Ugh. Wow. That's some strong shit. You gonna be okay?"

Deidara shrugged. He had to be, right? And if he wasn't, probably someone else could be selected to herd her the way they wanted her to go. Deidara just hoped he didn't crash. His expectations were sinking lower by the minute.

"No wonder depressed people sleep." Hidan shook his head. "I'm gonna go see how Konan's doing. Kisame, I told Kakuzu I'd send Sammy when we needed him. I just...yeah." _I just need to get away from Deidara. _Dei sent some chakra up to his brain. He felt better, better enough to feel bad about the implied statement.

Hidan stumbled away, tripped over the corner of the stairs, tripped again over the waist-height railing, and finally got far enough from Deidara to operate the door. Deidara's newly refreshed brain was able to interpret this as something to laugh at. He let loose like a crazy person, heedless of the stares of everyone else who'd attended the demonstration. _Would I do that? _He probably would. It wasn't hard to imagine his fogged brain, running without chakra as it had just been doing, operating his body like it was drunk.

Kisame and Sasori both walked over, concerned. "You alright?" Kisame asked warily.

Deidara wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. "Yeah, hm. I just...I just need to save my chakra for this thing, that's all, hm. So I can't use it all the time to keep myself awake, hm."

Sasori sighed. "Why didn't you just leave the bird at the lake where you were using it? Would it explode if you lost touch?"

Deidara stopped wiping. His face was red when he took his sleeve away from it. "Oh. That would be better, yeah."

Kisame huffed. "Do whatever you have to. Just don't crash." He walked off to wait for Kakuzu.

"I'll try my best, yeah."

Samehada came back with Kakuzu following, and there was commotion from inside.

**Konan**

_-a proud cat, lying sideways across the thin, craggy grass with its legs in a tangle before it. The ribcage, collapsed unnaturally thanks to the shattered breastbone. The tail, kinked. The deep blue eyes saw everything and said nothing. The flaws in them where genuine ice crystals pierced through shone in the light. There was no blood or sound. _

This was the image that Konan blinked away. It resisted her efforts, stubbornly staying behind her eyelids even as she sat up, shook her head, did everything she could think of to drive it away. Eventually, in desperation, she closed her eyes and imagined herself walking up to that cat where it waited for her. She closed its eyes. At last, the image disappeared, and she got up without any further trouble.

"Hey," Nagato piped up softly. He sat on the other side of the bed, and had been for a few minutes as he sorted out whether to wake her or not.

Konan stared at him, then flicked her eyes to the window. She had an outside room on the opposite side of the base from where Sasori and the others greeted the sun each morning. Even so, she could tell the morning was well underway, and stood up sharply enough to take herself off balance.

"That was a pretty good choice," Nagato told her. "To leave Hidan in charge of the strategy making, I mean. He's surprisingly good at it."

Konan regained her balance and stood evenly. _Hidan took over after I fell asleep? _She actually had not planned for that. Her heartbeat that had started racing calmed again. "He thought of something?"

"Yeah," Nagato smiled at her. "Come on, he'd love to tell it to you and Kakuzu. He's really happy about it." His smile seemed to indicate that Nagato was too. Konan glimpsed it as she swept out of the room to find out what was going on.

She nearly smacked into Hidan. "Oh, hey," he greeted her. His words were quiet and subdued as if he was very tired. Sure enough, he yawned.

"Are you tired?" If the first day was any indication, he didn't normally like staying up when he was under no influence. Konan felt a little guilty for falling just in time to leave him with everything.

"No, Deidara is." Hidan yawned again. "Are you awake? I could touch ya to pick up awake feelings if y'are."

Nagato blushed faintly where he had caught up to Konan and stood at her side. "Um...I am…"

Hidan felt noticeably more awake already from being around him. Even so, he cupped Nagato's cheek with his hand. The resulting feeling felt spicy. Nagato leaned into his hand despite his best efforts not to. Hidan took his hand back too quickly.

Hidan was now grinning from ear to ear and his eyes were alight. "Oh fuck yes!" he enthused. "I came up with a strategy after you went out, and everyone agrees it's _the shit_. I gotta tell you and Kakuzu." His eager gaze on her said that Kakuzu was added as an afterthought. He searched her face. Konan fed him a small approving smile, and he just about glowed. A ghostly vision came to her of what he must have looked like at 3 years old. His wide, pink eyes were undiminished.

Nagato felt like and not like a part of whatever was going on. He focused his attention away from whatever that might be and mentioned, "I'd hate to be a third wheel, but you really should get her and Kakuzu up to speed." His disclaimer felt hollow.

He should have known better than to think he _could_ be a third wheel when Hidan was present. Hidan sighed happily and chirped, "Yep, probably should." He grinned a challenge at Konan. "Race ya outside."

Konan answered by darting past him at a speed that Hidan quickly matched, but nobody else could have. Hidan got to the door first and leaped out over the porch with a "Yahoo!" that echoed off the trees. Konan stayed on the ground as she darted out and was in position to smack him just before he hit the ground. She grabbed his leg too, automatically turning a gesture of play into a move that had Hidan sprawling on the ground with her on top of him in the blink of an eye. Itachi, just coming out of the building after hearing the conversation, had to replay his memories of it several times just to figure out what had happened. Thank goodness for the Sharingan.

Hidan laughed from where his face was pressed into the ground. As part of her reflexes, Konan of course had a kunai in her hand and pressed to his throat. Hidan turned, saw this, and squealed again. "Whoally shit that's awesome!" He seemed to love being forced to the ground and made no move to get up. Konan smiled and put her kunai away, finally letting him up. Hidan whimpered up at her like he wasn't done.

Yahiko forgot about the salt he was still holding entirely. "I need to learn that," he declared.

Konan continued to tuck her kunai away and kick Hidan to get him up. _I will have to train him sometime. _Hidan got up, grumbling his disappointment. _But I'm not going to teach him a damn thing until he's ready. _

"You have a strategy to be telling us about?" she reminded Hidan.

"Oh, yeah. C'mon, Kakuzu!"

"Hey." Deidara nudged Sasori. "I'm more awake now, yeah. I think I'll go test the second part."

Sasori nodded and turn to address the whole backyard. "Spiders in the hole!" he yelled.

**Kakuzu**

They turned their stare on him as one. Her in polite interest, him in excited curiosity. Kakuzu steeled himself and refused, absolutely refused, to demonstrate powers that still repulsed him in front of any kind of audience. "Yes, I can," he answered, then folded his arms across his chest to say _And we're done here. _

"Excellent." Konan turned back. Hidan found her opinion more interesting than Kakuzu's powers, so Kakuzu was off the hook. _For now,_ he reminded himself. Hidan would probably remember at the most inconvenient time, if Kakuzu did not get a chance to show him today. He left the two nutballs to their deliberations and focused on his own identity crisis.

To himself, Kakuzu was capable of admitting when he was scared. He was scared now. Why did he have body parts that were tentacles of all things, and where were the body parts that were supposed to be in their place? He didn't have any reason to think he was missing vital organs. He was capable of all things other people were capable of. He had upper body strength, so he wasn't missing any muscle. The only thing Kakuzu could think of that could have been reasonably replaced in him were connective tissues. There were too many tentacles and not enough connective tissue for that to be the whole story. _What the hell am I? _Was he even human? He unwound and rewound a stitch above his stomach, and shivered.

"Let's go, then. If we have salt and Deidara is done testing, we're ready." Those words from Konan broke Kakuzu out of his thoughts. He hated those words, took a dislike to them instantly. There was a great difference between talking about something crazy, and doing something crazy, and he was reluctant to cross that gulf unless he absolutely had to. And he wouldn't like it even then.

That was why, he supposed, some higher power had arranged for him to be with Hidan of all people. "C'mon, slowpoke, get a fuckin' move on, we finally get to start!" Hidan chirped gleefully as he wrapped his arms around one of Kakuzu's and dragged the older man from the room. Why was dragging Hidan's preferred method of moving people? _Probably because it works for him, _Kakuzu admitted.

Outside, a spider stood in the middle of the backyard. For the grass's sake, it was on the same patch of ground where Kakuzu had tested Stonemaker Jutsu that one day. Was it really so recently that they had demonstrated their jutsu? The patch of stone was unmarked still by any force of nature. It had only a few leaves blown onto it.

Overhead, Deidara circled on his bird. He sneezed. The garage was dusty. He got to the same height he'd held earlier, and tried moving the spider as he had the day before. The spider skittered in a circle around the edge of the patch of stone, then settled in the center. Sasori nodded at the three who had just come out, motioned them back on the porch, and raised his hand. Nobody moved. He let it fall.

The spider hissed, swelled, then popped like a moving cyst. Instead of pus, fire erupted from it, and not a little concussive force. The leaves were incinerated before they got to the grass and the stone sported some very small cracks directly beneath the center of the spider. For something that was only meant to blow a hole in someone's chest or face at close range, it was remarkably powerful.

Deidara landed the bird. "Looks like I'm good, yeah," he addressed Hidan and Konan together. "I don't know how many of these I might need, though. I'll need my chakra to stay awake as well, yeah."

"Can we spare anyone to help?" Hidan asked.

"You forget, I have nothing to do at this part. I'll harass her in my paper form," Konan answered.

She then nodded to Hidan, put her hands together in that strange seal, and turned entirely into paper. As the last of the paper dispersed, Kakuzu's heart began to beat faster. He might not like crossing that gap, whether he had to or not...but he did have to admit the other side had its perks. He was too old to be spending his time sitting around. "I take it that means 'Roll out,'" he addressed Hidan.

"Fuck yes!" Hidan pointed to Deidara and Laurie. "You guys stay with the bird. Everyone else, abandoned houses are thataway." And he took off into the trees. Kakuzu followed, as always. There was the sound of many footsteps behind him.

**Deidara**

Red shirt, blonde hair, Konan had reported of the succubus' latest form. Already in the west side of town. As long as the succubus was in town, Konan was running the whole operation. Deidara circled high and clear, staying out of the sun's path and keeping himself below the clouds as much as he could. Every so often sheets of paper formed into Konan's head and told him of the latest movement. Deidara found this to be a lot creepier than Laurie did and had to remind himself _She's a normal person, yeah. They have those blinders on so they don't notice how weird things are, hm._

"Wow," Laurie was mostly amazed, not frightened at this point. When they leveled off, she unclasped one arm from around Deidara's waist and pointed. "You see that? That's the entire area where I live. It looks right next door to the shop from here. I wonder where Sasori's is?"

"I don't know, hm." Deidara shrugged. Sasori always came to him, not the other way around. Deidara had always gotten around feeling guilty for this by promising that, as soon as he was mentally on his feet, he'd return the favor. Deidara belatedly realized he already had. He'd come to see Sasori that day the boss was out, without being called. He smiled and leaned back into Laurie's embrace.

Laurie held him just a little tighter. "So...what about you?"

"Uh…" Dei tried to come up with something plausible, and failed. _She might find out anyway, _he reasoned. And feared. He readjusted his front ponytail, which did not need it, and tried to be casual. "Um...So, I didn't really want a lot of people around, and I didn't know what I thought about explosives, it was kind of sudden…" he stalled.

Laurie's grip on him loosened just a little. "There," he pointed, before she could say or do anything else. He did not point to the cheap apartments in town. He did not point to any of the actual homes served by the roads leading out of town. He pointed almost due west, just south of the direction the rest of the group had run in.

"Really?" Thank the gods, Laurie didn't sound like she would judge him for this. "How did you get things? Are there any not-abandoned places that way?"

"I mostly just wanted space to myself, and to not have to deal with things," Deidara admitted. His face was all red. "Kind of a mess after I got back, yeah. 'Specially for the embarrassingly long time it took to think of getting back in touch with Sasori, yeah."

Laurie held him closer again. "I'm glad you did. Sounds like the both of you needed it."

Her breath tickled the side of his neck. "Yeah…" Deidara answered lamely. _This is nice._

The upper half of Konan's body formed beside them. "She gets more angry than intimidated by these indirect attacks," Konan informed them. "I'm going to have to be more direct. Be ready to provide backup."

Laurie's arms squeezed tighter, almost fiercely. "I'm kind of looking forward to this. You?"

Deidara took the bird lower. "Hell yeah!"

**Konan**

She reformed in a side street that crossed the path the succubus was taking as she ran from flying paper shuriken. The last paper shuriken embedded itself in the pavement, forcing the succubus to leap back. She snarled. Konan stepped out behind her and waited in silence. The succubus spun around and nearly smacked into her.

The succubus' face wrinkled like she smelled something noxious as she took in Konan's appearance. "You...who are you?"

Konan stared with her most implacable gaze. "I am the one who will see you leave this place." A kunai entered her hand. "You hurt a man I would give many things to see safe, and threaten others I would give my entire life for. You…" She held up the kunai so it glinted beneath her eyes. "Will not be allowed to continue."

The succubus' eyes widened. "He's already got…?"

Konan glared sternly. "It is best to know who your enemy is. That was a mistake you should not have made."

The demon's eyes settled, and her features began to shift. Konan entrusted her other senses with her safety and glanced skyward. She saw nothing, but wingbeats soon sounded behind her. Konan returned her gaze to the… _Wow. _The man before her was stunningly attractive. _He's got hair like Yahiko's...skin like Hidan's...that predatory look in his eyes of my Hidan… _Konan forgot entirely where she was or what was happening. She swallowed back excess saliva as she took in the man before her. He looked _delicious_. The kunai glinted. A low snarl broke from Konan's throat. _I want to do everything to him. _The incubus's aura allowed her to forget her more noble desires not to rip open the people she loved. There was nothing to stop her from leaping upon this good looking, good smelling person and sinking her teeth into his well-muscled flesh.

The incubus realized it had indeed made a mistake.

Konan awakened from a dreamlike haze of flirtatious pursuit, with the incubus taking the role of the prey, once they were well into the forest. The demon's features had begun to dissolve, and its aura changed. Konan gritted her teeth in frustration and wished death upon the demon for several more reasons than she had before. The road was not within sight. Konan could not be sure of where she was relative to the abandoned houses.

Snow fell to the right, exploding as it fell. The succubus fled up a hill to the left. _So that's how it will be. _Konan would keep her moving, and Deidara would provide direction. That was more than fine. Konan poured on the speed, spending chakra she hadn't recovered yet. As long as this worked, she would not complain. _Fine with me. _

The succubus howled. "Why are you still following me? I can't exactly be killed!"

"We're aware." Konan threw a kunai with an exploding tag. It caught both the demon's legs, causing her to stumble. But the demon stumbled on, nonetheless. She had more than met her match in the human behind her, the human whose eyes sparked with the desire to hurt even as they glazed over, the human who would destroy what was impossible to kill. Yes, she had made a very bad mistake.

Paper claws nipped at her shoulder. Thunder drove her north, then west, then north again. It seemed the entire world was shattering as she broke out into sunlight and clustered houses, like disused nests. The succubus dared not stop to plan. She keened with rage, humiliation, fear, and shrieking powerlessness. Her soul trembled. What was this? Who were they?

A shadow leaped on her right. "Go!" it commanded. And go she did, as a tremendous push lifted her off her feet and sent her tumbling across empty lawns, into a pile of used nesting material and broken glass. She had to be contracting who knows how many terrible diseases in the few seconds she lay there, stunned and in pain and burning up with rage that threatened to make her very soul explode. It was all _his _fault! That thing, that was in everything now. What had it done to these humans?

Hidan perched on a roof, chewing some birdseed he'd snagged in place of popcorn. His eyes followed her, not leaving even while she screamed.

.

**A/N: It was strangely **awesome** to write something from the succubus' perspective. Loved it. Look forward to more next chapter. **

**Heeheehee. Go! Go! Go!**


	30. The Execution

**A/N: I have classes on all 5 weekdays this semester, which is really wreaking havoc on my sleep because I have to be there from 8 to 5 if I have even one class that day. This is the kind of situation that writing ahead was designed for. May my brain adjust.  
**

**Content warning for not _exactly_ an attempted rape, but kind of. **

**.**

**Sasori**

The white bird landed some distance away, behind some houses. That was fine. Laurie would need some time to look for her chance, and Sasori was doing well enough with Nagato.

Nagato hesitated before running after the succubus. He was very capable with nothing more than his pushing and pulling powers. Sasori found their half-joking claim that he could have been in charge of something to be more and more credible.

Sasori was still running to his place, which was deeper in the houses and in the direction Nagato had pushed her. Nagato had seen her coming, and pointed without time for words. Sasori leaped over some badly untrimmed bushes and crouched behind them, ready. He'd run in the pointed direction without a word, and though the demon was not in his sight he understood the little ambush Nagato had arranged was working.

The demon screamed loudly. Sasori's guts trembled faintly. Everyone knew he had no kind of affection for it; but, of course, he was a person of this world where he had not met enough suffering and death to harden his heart. That sound reminded him of a cornered cat. Sasori reframed the situation in a more helpful way. The sooner he captured her, the sooner this could stop. His fingers twitched, chakra almost bursting with readiness.

Meanwhile, the succubus got to her feet. Dripping with uncountable tributaries joining into small rivers of blood, with the smell of used nesting material around her and making that terrible sound, Nagato was forced to a stop. He looked around quickly and saw nothing but houses through which he could throw her if he intended to use his powers again. It seemed like he would not be intending to use his powers again. Nagato swallowed down nausea and turned to face the succubus. He couldn't continue with the half-formed idea he'd seen in her approach. A paper butterfly fluttered past, fluttering angrily but still willingly staying in a supporting role. For now. Nagato shook his head no at it. His heartbeat quieted and he relaxed a little. How could anyone fight like this without such communication, he didn't know.

The succubus looked at him through ragged hair. _This _human was not like the woman. He was a more normal kind that, for all his powers, wasn't nearly so much of a threat. None of that woman's paper was around, as far as she could see. She took a chance. Damnit! With that ambush, any doubts she'd had that there was a plan in place were blown away like smoke. There were probably more. But if she could get this one out of the way…

Nagato saw the transformation in progress and averted his eyes, backing away as he did so. The incubus' eyes narrowed in triumph. Demon's instincts were never wrong. He'd hoped against hope before when he got no indication of anything from that annoying mutant, but he'd been sadly right to get nothing. This one would be easy.

That was when a large, dark-colored human came in from wherever he'd been hiding, reaching out for the demon with impossible black tentacles. The incubus turned and ducked into the house whose front yard he'd been thrown in, exiting by the back. He returned to female form as he did so. Damnit!

She'd come from the forest. The humans were in among the empty houses somewhere. And the dark human had leaped down from the sky. She knew what lay in the direction he'd come from. It would be a good place for these cowardly rats to hide together until they mustered the courage to come out. She headed deeper into the houses, angling north.

_Shit. _Sasori heard the news (Konan had a butterfly on every rooftop by now) and cursed his luck. He didn't blame Nagato at all. It was just unfortunate that she was heading the exact opposite direction from his hiding place. Sasori refused to let himself be drawn into a wild chase. He headed west and south to the clay bird.

Kisame and Yahiko huddled together, the shark man hoping his new partner was up to the task. "Ready?"

The orange haired ninja nodded, his eyes brave. They'd see how well that held up. "Ready."

They had no water around, but it was getting cloudy and they were surrounded by overgrown plant life. There was plenty of water in plants. Couldn't be that hard to mess with it. They raced out to intercept, counting on Konan to stop them just before they actually came within sight. There was no way Konan knew what they were planning, but it was good that she would count on them. Their earlier conversation had gone:

"Lot of greenery everywhere."

"Yeah, almost more moss than grass."

"Huh. Moss...you think…?"

Nods of agreement.

Yahiko had mentioned to Kisame that they didn't have to make signs to use water all the time, and it was better than sitting around. Kisame was pretty sure they could do something. Pretty sure.

Kisame thought watery thoughts and grabbed two handfuls of moss in a lawn. It kind of worked, but the plants held firm. He ripped it straight out of the ground and stomped on the moss. Yahiko whispered something to a bush.

The demon came around the corner, and got bits of moss and dirt in her eyes, as well as a bush just barely brushing her shoulder. She howled again and stumbled back, turning to fight. It was just a bit of mud and a brush, but a brush in the dark is the favorite trick of spooksters everywhere. She jumped backward against a predicted attack, scrambling to clear her eyes in the meantime. Yahiko and Kisame followed her graceful movements and strong muscles as she did so.

Itachi had been wondering what sort of mild thing the most peaceful person in the entire group would do. He thought it would maybe buy time, at best. Someone needed to be there to take advantage of it. Itachi's eyes burned with the Mangekyo Sharingan. He would only have one chance.

As soon as he heard her frantic movements stop, and the demon say in disbelief, "What? Why?" Itachi was on the move, leaping out from where he'd circled behind her with his eyes closed. It felt strangely not-weird. He heard her pivot, and heard her pivot stop. Itachi snapped his eyes open and channeled chakra through them.

The sun churning resentfully behind the clouds overhead turned red and came out of hiding. The world darkened. She was still the most beautiful thing Itachi had ever seen. His chakra, like the rest of his mind, darted out of his control. He could do nothing to change it. She would have to break out of his jutsu by herself.

Or, as it happened not long later, both Itachi and the succubus could be run over by a giant clay bird crash landing into the ground, Sasori indicating _forward _and _down_ while Deidara obeyed with his eyes squeezed shut. Laurie darted in out of breath just before this and pulled Itachi backward so his neck wouldn't be snapped from above. The giant weight broadsided Itachi instead, performing a single beat of CPR on his ribcage. His head did smack painfully against Laurie's ribs as they both hit the ground, but through the pain Laurie didn't think anything really dangerous had happened. She hoped.

Deidara was thrown off. Sasori had jumped off just before landing and caught him. The redhead eased him to the ground as fast as possible and leaped over the bird to drag the demon from beneath its tail. But she was already beginning to fight. Sasori stopped, not pulling her from beneath the bird nor doing anything else. His fingers twitched to do what he was here for, but Sasori didn't move. He couldn't see in his mind what he was to do next.

_My strings aren't ready for this. _He couldn't believe he'd only realized this now. The succubus pushed the clay bird up somewhat because it wasn't very dense and crawled halfway out from under it. _I have sticky strings. They don't work on their own. They're puppet strings, not normal ones. _Her other half wriggled out from the bird. _They need something on the other end. _

A counterweight was the first thing Sasori considered. If he even attached them to small rocks, that would do. There weren't any small rocks around. She had gotten enough breath back for some inaudible curses and was trying to stand. But Sasori needed something, _anything _to put on the other end so the rest of his string was free to coil. She stood and glared straight at him. Sasori recoiled as he had before from her aura which was supposed to grab him like honey. Like glue.

_That's a bad idea. Glue's weak on its own. It also needs something else to hold together in order to work. _Could he maybe get rid of the glue somehow…? The succubus shook and her features began to change yet again. The demon made itself a very large, very strong body and lunged for the red-haired little mutant that had caused all this, brought the demonlike woman down behind it and these other men with their tricks like throwing _mud_ of all things in its eyes and fooling it into thinking it was in real danger and then -

Sasori reached up and snapped his fingers out at _each other. _Sticky end met sticky end, and, to Sasori's surprise, broke up as the normal chakra of the strings met and fused. The result was one string, bound together in the middle in a more stable arrangement than Sasori had feared. Sasori released more string as fast as he could as the demon crashed into him, meeting the string head on. They fell to the ground together.

_Crack. _Sasori's head went spinning. His chakra strings did nothing as a shield, not in this position. The demon pinned his shoulder to the ground, rearing up to send his head spinning from the other direction. Some of its blood got on his face. At least Sasori hoped that was the demon's blood. His vision was adversely affected. All he could do was focus inwards and keep drawing on himself. Increasing quantities of string pooled between them, useless.

_Need to get it off me._ The demon brought down another fist, the look in its wounded face truly demonic. Sasori cried out, in more mental than physical pain from its touch. This was truly as bad as it could get. _I need help! _Sasori's string broke apart as he lost control over his chakra. He didn't care. All he could think of was the feeling of it _straddling _him, and all he could do was thrash weakly and beg _Get off me Get off me Get off me. _The demon's grip on his shoulder came loose and resettled on his neck. The pressure there would have deadened Sasori's ability to scream, if he had had any to begin with. But the redhead's vision seemed to dim as if it was on a screen he was walking away from, and Sasori would have sworn up and down he really was moving away from it, only he wasn't walking. He was being dragged. The demon's hand on his neck… Sasori felt it with senses that were distinctly _not _supposed to be on his outside, were supposed to be safe and sound beneath his breastbone. The aura was inside him, or he was outside him, and either way it was _all over _and _get off me! _and anytime now it would be in deep enough to read things he'd never dreamed where he could know before.

Something glowed. Sasori had no eyes anymore, but still he saw that beyond the aura there were magnificent colors. They were all as they should be, in their place, and for all but one of them that place was not near him. Sasori looked at them all, colors that were more than he could have connected to humanity's puny color vocabulary, _so much more, _colors that had names he didn't know and were things like _exploding too-much near-bursting rage _and _apathy_ _of flying in dream oceans _and _evasive edge-of-mind not knowing _and _wood-sturdy-feeling-sound. _The near color was near. It was actually a great many different colors combined together to be less specific than _wood-sturdy-feeling-sound_, all of them together _benevolence._ It was a very small patch from somewhere in the dark blue side of green, and it emerged from the midside of _clean pain_. _Clean pain_ was everywhere.

**No!** said something that wasn't a voice because Sasori had been dragged away from his ears. It felt more like an inner voice, but outside. Sasori embodied a patch of pale yellows that were a few kinds of _fear_, some orange-blues that were together _overwhelmed_, and the unmistakable near-white _naked_, and reached for his body. He would be safe in his body and not naked. And he would be able to hear and see what was happening where the bodies were.

"_Off!"_ yelled the strangest sight Sasori had ever seen. Blood spattered onto his lips from where the demon with fingernails too human to do much tore at Sasori's savior. There were scratches on Yahiko's cheek and forearms, and more promised if he kept wrestling with the demon. "No," Yahiko and the look in Yahiko's eyes both said. They moved away from Sasori where he lay staring. The demon was fighting by clawing at its attacker, and Yahiko's clothes were fast being ripped to tatters. His skin and soul would be next.

Yet his eyes had no fear or anything else in them, just _benevolence_ and a few close relations. This was why his fight with the demon went unchallenged. This was why it was a surprise and a bad shock to everyone when one second they were alone, and the next a spear was through the demon's heart.

It was so fast that Yahiko kept wrestling with the demon and the demon kept tearing at his clothes for a few seconds afterward, until they and everyone else realized the demon was not moving and was now pinned to the ground. The spear was white, and the incubus did not have enough time to realize it had made yet another very bad mistake before she was upon it.

Yahiko received a flying heel kick to safety for his troubles. The incubus still did not complete its realization before Konan sliced paper claws (_When the hell does she have those_) across its back, flaying the demon and leaving its back to shrink from the air. Its efforts to shrink away from the pain of the air proved unsuccessful, and by then Konan had sent her paper out to retrieve the salt. Hidan still guarded it with his body up on the flat rooftop.

Every human in the area covered their ears, except for Hidan who was still unable to do anything as Konan did not completely block his view of the incubus. The (_clean_) pain did wonders to clear Sasori's mind. He made chakra string again and wrapped it around the demon's jaw first, then tied up the rest of it. The result was a bound demon, barely recognizable as such when it was half gift wrapped in blue.

Kakuzu and Nagato arrived, Nagato praying that his failure hadn't cost anybody anything important. His chakra flamed when he saw the scratches on Yahiko's cheeks and the blood on him. Nagato leaped over the entire scene to Yahiko's side, ready to take the blame and promise Yahiko he would never fail to keep him safe again and check the wounds. Yahiko laughed.

The demon was struck dumb, again. Nagato stopped, before he could blame himself very harshly. Konan stopped, before she could rip the demon limb from limb from everything else. They both turned to him and waited for a cue.

Yahiko finished in breathless, amazed bursts. "Woah." He was breathing very fast now. "I didn't know I could do that!" He looked up, and the last traces of that strength were visible in his eyes. He seemed not to have noticed that he was injured at all. He had eyes only for Sasori. "Are you alright?"

Sasori nodded.

"Good." Yahiko slumped a little, panting. "I...I fought a demon. It worked." He wasn't smiling at anything in particular, and still had not noticed he was injured.

Nagato forgave himself. Nothing very bad had happened, after all. He reluctantly admitted Yahiko wasn't bleeding a life-threatening amount, and tried his best to relax. Had anyone brought bandages?

Konan wanted to smack someone. Not Yahiko, although he was the source of her desire. Smacking him would only worsen his injuries. Not that he had even so much as noticed them! And he was happy about it, too. Konan hadn't seen anyone more equipped to wrestle a demon, like Kisame, move to do anything. Why did it have to be Yahiko? Even if he did get to feel very brave and proud of himself, it wasn't worth the risk. If he _ever_ tried something like that ever again… She twisted and pulled the spear from side to side, and kicked at the demon's salted wounds. Its screams were exactly what she would have liked to let out herself.

"Wh - what are you doing?" Yahiko took Nagato's arm and got to his feet. Even from the side of her eye, Konan could see the horrified look on his face. "It's already tied up. It doesn't need - _nothing _ever needs - " His eyes filled with compassion for the demon that had just a minute before been trying to kill him and someone he cared about. Against her will, she followed his gaze and saw it as he saw it, like she had before with the deer. Like before with the deer, Konan felt shame wash over her. It counteracted the desire she had once more to inflict pain in the incubus, turned that desire into something bad. She undid all her paper jutsu and stepped back, silent and trying to be invisible.

She mostly succeeded, except for Nagato. For the first time, he understood her anger. He might have done the same. Nagato's mouth fell open. He'd never considered… Might Konan actually _care_ for Yahiko? The idea was amazing. But then why did she usually seem to dislike him? Nagato shook his head. He had no idea at all what was going on inside her head.

"Thank you," Sasori said. He didn't like the demon to be in pain either. It would be nearly impossible to talk to it if it was crying the whole time. He tightened his strings, pulling them back in his hands. The demon was squeezed out of breath. From the pressure of the strings and everyone looking at it, many of them angry, it collapsed into female form. Sasori tightened the strings accordingly. It would not escape.

The angry looks mostly disappeared. Laurie shook her head and asked, "What?" She had seen nothing of Konan's anger or Nagato's concern. Sasori figured it would make more trouble to tell her. He beckoned her to his side.

Nagato nudged Konan's hand discreetly and received enough paper to make an adequate bandage for Yahiko's torn cheek. The patient did not protest, absorbed as he was in the demon's aura. Sasori's stomach turned at its power. He knew it was weakened, but still the aura held everyone else spellbound in it. He fought the urge to step back and reassure himself that his skin was still on. Though his mouth was flipping a coin on whether to be dry or excessively wet, and though Sasori would have liked to turn and never feel its aura brushing against him ever again, he knew what he was here for. So did Laurie. They rooted their feet to the ground and stood defiantly in front of it together.

He loosened the strings just enough to work the ones around her jaw free and move them somewhere else. The succubus did not protest. She was well and truly beaten, and only sat slumped in the strings with her head hanging down. Sasori was horrified to see water dripping from her chin. His stomach flipped more insistently. _If she makes noise to go with that, I'll - _

"Why?" The succubus whispered it so quietly that he had to work to understand what she'd said. "What are you people? Humans aren't - shouldn't - " She shook. _She's afraid. Of us. _He didn't want to, but Sasori saw her perspective for a brief flash. They couldn't have done this if they weren't really from a different world, a world that had no business being anywhere near this one. They weren't meant to coexist, them and the succubus, but somehow they'd been forced into this world. Her anger was justified. Her attempting to drive them away somehow could be justified. If only she hadn't tried to drive them away like this, maybe something peaceful could have been arranged. If only she'd waited to move on them, Yahiko had wanted to arrange something but hadn't gotten the time. They didn't belong, and she was right to recognize that, if nothing else. Sasori felt like apologizing.

That was what ended the brief flash. No; she'd attacked them, not the other way around. He shouldn't apologize. Nobody here was to blame, not even Hidan as she seemed to think, not even the succubus herself. It was not in anyone's power to make them clones in this world, or to send them away from it. Only whatever cosmic forces had done this in the first place could do that, and they couldn't be reached for comment. She'd tried to do the impossible, and failed. That wasn't something to apologize for at all. Sasori tightened his strings so she gasped again. They had memories of growing up here. They belonged here, as much as they could. They were friends and friends keep each other safe. He wouldn't pretend they'd done anything wrong.

"It's all - " She gasped. He loosened the strings so she could breathe. "It's all the fault of - _that._" She mustered the energy to spit the word hatefully as if it was a vile curse. "It's poisoned everything. It's made you lot all wrong, and _her _especially - " That was a shiver of fear, and maybe disgust too. Exactly what Sasori felt at the sight of the succubus. "Nothing is where it should be anymore. You - he - this isn't - " Her face crumpled, but fortunately for Sasori's stomach and Nagato's, she didn't sob. She only lowered her head to hide it. "This isn't right. It's not real." Her shoulders shook with repressed sobs. "It's not real."

Nobody could find anything to say against such heartbreak. Except Laurie. "What about me?" she asked. "I'm real. Where did I come into this?" She stepped closer to the succubus. "I don't know what you're trying to do exactly, and I don't understand where I had to be involved. Why'd I have to spend the night with them in fear of my life? Why?"

The succubus collapsed in on herself further. "Because I would do anything to not live in wrongness anymore."

"I didn't see anything wrong," Sasori interjected. He'd only just remembered. "When you pulled my soul partially out of my body earlier, I saw colors. But they weren't colors, they were concepts. They were ideas. I saw the ideas of everything in the world." _I'll think more about that later. _"I know what you mean, but I don't think it's bad or wrong."

Laurie and the succubus looked at him in shock. Konan's eyes were on him too, but Sasori wasn't at the right angle to see that. "I saw a lot of one particular color, this really specific idea of...a few things. I can't say; I can't see it anymore. But I did see how it was everywhere, more than the others. I can see why that would be weird." The demon opened her mouth to say something back, and he cut her off with, "But. I understood them like that. I got the feeling somehow that they were as they should be. They're everything, so that makes sense. If they weren't, everything would fall apart." He looked around at their environment. The laws of physics and causality were still in place. Logic still worked. The only place he knew where wrongness could be found was the demon boy's haunted hospital.

"So…" He looked her in the eyes and delivered his verdict. _Ugh her eyes! _"It's not wrong or bad in the way you mean that. It's just different. It might not be sustainable, might not be natural, but this arrangement is working. You're just going to have to work with it and adapt. And _we_ aren't going anywhere." He sounded much more sure than he felt while saying that last sentence. But wasn't it true? "Even if we wanted to, we can't, and neither can you. We'll have to get used to it."

The demon collapsed further than she ever had before. She couldn't accept that. Couldn't. Wouldn't. So she just kept collapsing. The humans were astonished to see that what they had taken before as great flexibility was nothing of the sort. Her body was literally breaking up, her form becoming indistinct, her aura disappearing. Most of the men around blinked or shook themselves. Their jaws dropped open too, equally as astonished as the ones who had not been caught in her aura. Nobody knew what was happening at all. Not even Hidan, who remembered being told that he'd come up with this plan, had any idea.

In and in she went, until a small glimmer and nothing more could be seen behind Sasori's strings as they fell. It had taken a few seconds. It felt like a few hours. It would live in their thoughts for days.

Hidan noted that the salt had been moved, swung himself over the side of the roof, and carefully made his way down the side of the decrepit car dealership at great speed. He joined the others as they started to look around, trying to decide by group consensus whether they should talk about what had just happened. All eyes ended up on him, as the guy who had made the plan even though technically he hadn't. His eyes ended up on Konan, as the one who he most trusted with his missing memories.

"Essence," she remembered. "You said there would be essence left after she collapsed."

Everyone else remembered that, too. So now they knew what the little glimmer was that hovered in the air in front of Sasori and Laurie. Sasori had some questions. "So what does that - "

Hidan pounced on the little floating glimmer, closed his mouth over it, and swallowed.

"What the hell?!" Nagato blurted out.

"Why did you do that?" Kakuzu demanded.

"You said it was her essence," Hidan said to Konan. "If it's her essence," he explained to everyone else, "then it's the essence of a being with cool powers and shit, who pretty much is her powers and the using of them. Therefore, if I take in her essence, I might get cool powers." He added to himself, "I just hope I was right about which power I'd be getting."

Several people took a step back from him. Sasori's chakra wavered, and he fought not to do the same. Konan reached out and held Hidan's hand so he'd have a head start on restraining her if her more noble desires failed again. Sasori lost, and took several steps back. His heart was beating too fast. _If he starts to feel like...I'll… _Sasori had not the slightest idea what he would do. His feet prepared to run, but it was more likely that he'd fall down. Laurie took Sasori's arm, as much for her benefit as his. Itachi was determined and held his ground.

Hidan felt the sudden spike of fear, and briefly lost confidence in his own thoughts. Had he guessed wrong? He defended himself by retracing his reasoning. Yeah, the succubus or incubus (there really should be a gender neutral name for it) had scary hypnosis powers, but, he repeated, those hypnosis powers were based on what form it was in. So really, the basis for all its powers was the sex changing, so if he would get any of the succubus' powers it would be that one and not the hypnosis, right? Unless he got both. No, no, there was only so much an essence could contain. It could only be one thing. So, he reasoned against the fear, that would be the one thing it would be. Hidan closed his eyes. He also zipped up his cloak. Thank everything he'd worn it that morning!

Konan and Nagato's eyes widened. Nagato reached out for Yahiko's hand and held it. Yahiko wondered why Nagato needed comfort, but gave it as requested. Konan squeezed Hidan's hand, and won the honor of being the first to notice the change, even before Hidan himself. Hidan had no idea what to expect, so he just thought _I'd like to turn into a girl, please _and sometime later realized something was happening. He felt nothing inside himself, not even what using his chakra felt like. If he had been in a sensory deprivation chamber with nothing but his own sense of his own body, he wouldn't have noticed anything. But he did notice when his hand suddenly felt different against Konan's.

"Woah," Yahiko summarized. Hidan did not look very different in female form. His facial features narrowed and became just slightly more graceful, but his new face was very recognizably Hidan. His hair was unchanged. The greatest difference was in how his overall proportions adjusted, his shoulders narrowing just a little, his legs changing just a bit (even watching the change, nobody could figure out how) and Konan having to readjust her grip in his hand. As with Konan, the cloak was so covering that little could be seen of hips or bust, so all anyone could tell was that his cloak seemed a little looser around chest height. But Hidan's proportions really didn't change all that much either. A computer might have been fooled, but no human eye could fail to make the connection between this and his regular form.

Hidan opened his eyes. They were also completely unchanged, despite popular depictions of women as having bigger eyes with longer lashes. There was no such change. Everyone felt vaguely lied to, except for Konan who already knew. Laurie was relieved, before some sneaking hidden part of her mind whispered that it meant nothing because Hidan was overall prettier than she was in this form. She did have to admit his skin looked great. But that did _not _mean that his eyes looked fine only because the rest of him could compensate. She put those thoughts back in their box and sat on it.

Hidan looked down at his hand in Konan's. He examined his free hand closely, then touched his face, then poked himself in the chest. He blinked. "Huh." He fiddled with his cloak and settled on keeping it open down to his collarbone. It would be fine to go a few inches lower, but he didn't want to freak anyone out.

"How is it?" Nagato ventured.

"Cool!" Hidan smiled, and almost instantly caught himself. His hands flew to his throat. "Whoally shit."

"What should we call you now?" Yahiko asked.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Hidan asked. "I'm not different at all. Same old me." He started fiddling with his hair. "Except now I could grow my hair out and play with it and put decorations in it! Fuck yeah! Do you think I'd look good with ribbons?"

Yahiko's jaw fell open. How could Hidan say that about being female all of a sudden? It _was _different. Yahiko knew he'd feel different if he was ever turned female. His face grew scarlet at the thought and Yahiko moved to hide behind Nagato. Yet the question remained in his mind, and he was unable to stop asking himself how it would feel to be female. Hidan seemed to like it. Bad brain! Stop!

"Hey, it moves different," Hidan observed. "Let's race this shit! Fun!"

"So, just to confirm, you still want us to use male pronouns in this form?" Nagato asked. Hidan's dumbfounded stare of _Why would you do anything else?, _while not the kind of answer he'd been looking for, put the question to rest.

Konan let go of Hidan's hand and tapped him on the shoulder. "We can race later. In the meantime, I don't have the chakra for a race, and I would like to recover it while debriefing everyone on this mission." She nodded at Laurie. "Since you were here, you are included."

The mention of chakra made Deidara yawn. He was sweeping his brain with it to keep functioning by now, and could not understand at all how Konan had gone without sleep for at least two nights while fighting well enough to seriously hurt someone. She must have ridiculous levels of chakra, he reasoned.

Konan did not have ridiculous levels of chakra and held tight to Hidan to maintain the pretense of staying at the back of the group solely to keep track of him. Hidan played along, asking questions that would have been invasive and TMI if anyone else had asked them. She managed to dodge the question of what menstrual cycles felt like, only to be asked about intercourse. She answered truthfully that she had no idea, so he moved on to self-pleasure. Fortunately everyone had anticipated something like this and raced ahead as soon as they saw Hidan was staying near her, so the resulting conversation was pleasant and not at all uncomfortable. Hidan was a perfect gentleman even in female form, keeping her propped up as if it was his only job the whole way.

At least a few people had to notice the way she kept leaning on him as they walked into the sunroom, and the small sigh of relief as she sat. Konan was starting to understand that they genuinely were different, so she did not worry. These ones could be trusted around weakness. She knew that now.

.

**A/N: 1) Yes. Some eagle-brained readers may recall what I said a few chapters ago and be thinking "Wait...Is this..." and for those readers and everyone else, the answer is affirmative. Yes, I really did invent the idea of an entire arc just so I could give Hidan the ability to change his sex at any time. I thought it would be really, really cool if he could, and needed a way for that to happen, so...**

**2) Woohoo more celebrations! It has been 30 chapters, and the story has advanced by ONE WHOLE WEEK! Hooray!**

**3) Wood-sturdy-feeling-sound describes a certain kind of sound that sounds like wood. I don't mean it sounds stiff, or rough, or _like_ wood, I mean its sound literally reminds me of wood. It sounds like how wood feels, but not in a synesthesia kind of way, not where hearing it makes your fingertips think you're literally touching something. It's just a kind of sound, usually music, where the only word that comes to mind when I think of how to describe it is 'mahogany.' Like how certain kinds of high pitched sounds are described as metallic and 'tinny', like that! Woodwinds or strings can sound like it when they play deep, low notes. As an example I recommend Small Wooden Bach'ses by Mannheim Steamroller, or Amber by the same. Small Wooden Bach'ses has notes that keep a steady beat in the background, and many of the deeper ones sound a little wooden. In the later half of Amber, there's some part of the melody which is deeper than all the rest, and that particular part sounds wooden. **

**My use of pronouns here is a little contradictory to my use of pronouns in previous chapters. I need a coherent pronoun policy. But that would make it harder to avoid revealing spoilers...**


	31. The Evaluation

**A/N: This week's been crazy. Some stuff happening. Mostly catching up on sleep over the weekend. It is a significant cheer to read this again and recall that I can be productive. Enjoy!**

**.**

**General**

"That was…" Konan searched for the right word.

"A clusterfuck," Hidan helpfully supplied from her left.

"Yes, that. Let's recall everything that happened in order, shall we?"

Everyone's flinching muscles prepared themselves for upcoming work.

Konan tried to summarize the battle in the most detached, objective way she possibly could. The minds of her listeners filled in the negative meanings all by themselves, though, so everyone flinched as their mistakes were brought up regardless. "The enemy was successfully pursued to the target area," she began, "where an ambush dealt a strong blow. Lack of follow up allowed the enemy to escape and move freely. She took a predictable course, making possible another ambush that resulted in her successful capture. Overly forceful efforts to restrain her put one of our own in harm's way and freed her from captivity. Last-minute recognition of poor planning allowed her to escape again and attack two more of our own, inflicting moderate wounds on both. While attacking, the enemy became sufficiently focused that a timely intervention succeeded in immobilizing her yet again, so she could finally be restrained and the mission completed."

Sasori did not flinch when his actions were first mentioned, but only because he had not yet realized there was anything unwise about them. Now that he thought about it, Itachi did seem like he'd been holding her pretty well before the bird crashed. _Oh crap. So I actually…_

Kisame flinched at everyone else's discomfort, but felt relieved for himself. He thought he'd been ridiculous. Stomping on moss? Really? Thank god Konan hadn't described what their "successful ambush" actually looked like. He prayed she wouldn't describe it any further. And, by accident, it seemed to have worked out somehow. Kisame felt like a miracle had carried something away before it could land on his shoulders. _What happened to make such a stupid idea work out? _

Kakuzu's hands tightened. If anyone made him speak, he would not be kind in his words. He'd had the element of surprise and had not held back at all, yet had still somehow failed to catch the freakin' enemy. _Maybe it was my timing. He'd finished transforming and was recovered by the time I got there. If I'd arrived a couple seconds earlier, maybe mid-transformation, it would have worked. _He still allowed himself to feel all defensive about it.

Hidan felt the general mood, and sighed. For something that had actually worked, nobody seemed very happy about how it'd gone. He elbowed Konan. Konan elbowed him back. She knew.

Konan pulled Hidan a little closer and propped herself on his shoulder. "I'm proud of all of you. Missions that go this far sideways don't generally succeed. I am proud to see that this one did."

Heads raised around the room. Had she really said that? There was something good to say about their mess? _She is? _

Konan nodded to her right. "Yahiko, Kisame. I have seen and heard of many uses of water style techniques, including pulling water out of the air first to use them in a desert, but I have never heard of controlling water inside something else. That was very creative, as was your use of simple tricks to achieve something disproportionately effective. As we are surrounded by plant life, I recommend developing more techniques like that.

"Itachi. You figured out a way to use visual jutsu against an enemy who causes paralysis on sight, and coordinated your efforts with Yahiko and Kisame's ambush despite not having planned with either of them. Quick thinking and coordination is essential in a team mission. Excellent work."

She nodded to Laurie. "Thank you for keeping injuries to a minimum, and assisting in the final defeat of the succubus. You may not be like us to land strong physical blows, but a sharp tongue can be just as effective."

She also nodded to Nagato, for organizing the first ambush. And that was all the well-deserved praise she had to hand out. There would be no pandering in any group of hers. "As for the mistakes that were made:

"Nagato, you have little experience using your powers, and so failed to judge your own limits accurately. That should correct itself with training.

"Kakuzu, your problem was mostly timing. Learning to identify when an opponent is least able to change course or defend themselves is a problem that should also resolve itself with sparring.

"Sasori, your idea was excellent in itself. The only fault is that it conflicted with Itachi's. I suppose some blame rests with me, since I was in charge of communications, but you must also be able to quickly and accurately perceive what is happening. You did not see that she had been captured. If you had, you could have pulled aside and restrained her without being attacked.

'Although…" Konan mused to herself. "Your experience while being attacked was a key part of her final defeat. It would have taken much more effort to get her to collapse if you had not had that experience. Some good did come out of that mistake."

Sasori nodded. Silver linings. He had to try to remember the silver lining to that experience. He still hugged himself tighter just to be sure that he had his skin on.

_What experience? _everyone else wondered. Sasori felt eyes on him. His skin crawled and he got the urge to get away and hide somewhere safe, where no souls would be looking at him. Touching.

"Hey dickfaces, stop staring! Ask about what kind of conversation they had with a demon some other time," Hidan intervened. Sasori thanked him from the depths of his heart. Hidan smiled back. _No problem._

"What exactly _did _your creative ambush look like?" Itachi asked Yahiko and Kisame.

Yahiko was more than happy to talk about it, and too fast for Kisame to stop. "Oh, well, we didn't have any water around, but we had plenty of plants. Plants have water in them, right? So Kisame crushed some moss, and I worked with a bush, and as soon as she came around Kisame threw moss and dirt in her eyes and I got the bush to reach out. All it did was brush against her a little bit…"

"That was enough," Itachi reassured him. "Touching someone while they can't see you is good for causing fear. She thought she was in danger, so she stopped. I couldn't have surprised her with the Tsukiyomi otherwise."

"Really?" Yahiko understood now what he was supposed to feel pride for. He turned to Kisame. "I thought we didn't manage anything like I'd hoped for, but it worked! We did it. It can't be foolish if it works!"

Kisame disagreed, but if people were going to be not thinking he was foolish, he could keep his opinions to himself. Yahiko beamed for them both.

"Did no one teach you about not trying what you see on television?" Kakuzu grumped.

"Television?" Kisame asked. "Moss likes water. Therefore, there's a bunch of water around. We didn't see anything on television."

"Actually, I saw a cartoon where characters who could use water had almost complete control over plants. I probably wouldn't have tried something dry and woody like a bush if I hadn't seen that," Yahiko admitted sheepishly.

"A cartoon? Are you serious?" Kisame looked at Yahiko like he'd said something so bizarre it stretched the bounds of reality. "'Don't try what you see on TV' is advice for shows that at least use living people. How on earth did you think using a _cartoon _as a model was going to work?"

"Where else was I going to see water powers?" Yahiko justified. "And it worked, right?"

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. _Kid's actually got a point. That isn't much weirder then what we have here in the so-called "real world." _

Konan elbowed Hidan. "Cartoon?"

"Do you know comics or manga or anything like that?" She nodded. "Like that, but it moves."

"But, everything's fine now, right? I can go home?" Laurie sounded like she wanted to sleep at home more than she really did. It was really nice to meet everyone, actually. She wouldn't mind spending more time here. But she hadn't forgotten that Hidan had planned something she couldn't be there for, and she didn't really belong. She wasn't a ninja like they were.

"Yeah, hm," Deidara answered. "But you'd still come over, right?"

"Yeah. Definitely. If...you know, if I wasn't getting in anyone's way," she qualified.

"No way!" Hidan objected. "That idea I had for the thing Konan wanted me to think about was all about our originals, that's all. I just thought you'd feel weird like you didn't have anything to talk about. You don't get in anyone's way! It's not true."

"I foresee a lot of time spent in that shed over to the left as you came in. It's going to be my workshop. You're free to hang out," Sasori offered.

Laurie blinked. They really wanted her to be here? Even if she wasn't a ninja? Her face turned tomato red and she found herself staring at the carpet very quickly. "T-thank you. I...Wow. Thank you guys."

Deidara punched her lightly in the shoulder. "Anyone who helps take down a demon deserves an honorary position somewhere, yeah."

"I guess that makes sense." She didn't understand entirely, but partially. She'd take it, at any rate. "Yeah, I'd love to hang out with you guys. Maybe I could...be a guinea pig, or a cheerleader, or whatever you guys need."

Yahiko nodded. "You already are. If we get used to things like this, we might forget they're amazing. It'd be good to have you around for a reminder." Whether he noticed or not, he was the first person to take Laurie's civilian status to be a good thing. She noticed.

Hidan wrapped an arm around Konan's waist. It seemed needed. "I think what we need now is downtime, to just fucking relax for once," he declared. "It's hard as shit to be alone in here. A good few hours would be fucking great, and if anyone wants to disagree with that I will punch you into a wall. Anyone want to disagree?" He looked around with a glare.

Deidara yawned, Yahiko's eyes flickered in the direction of his room like he'd recalled something he wanted to do, and Kisame and Kakuzu shot him grateful glances. Hidan relaxed and let himself slump. "In that case…" Konan pushed herself off and stood mostly under her own power, allowing Hidan to blink and get his vitality back. He yawned. "We're officially adjourned. All you fuckers clear out."

He turned back to male form and brushed everything away from the comfy chair, some instinct telling him any room was too far away. Deidara still had some chakra left, so the blonde could get his own bed. There was clearing out as requested. Konan looked carefully around to make sure there was no one else in the vicinity before flopping into the big chair and burying her face in the opposite arm cushion. She didn't feel exactly like sleeping, just lying there and staring at the carpet and not moving a muscle. But the chair required curling up to use as a bed, and she was still uncurled with her legs hanging off the opposite end, so she would have to move. That was unpleasant to think about. She closed her eyes and went to sleep instead.

Hidan figured he should be helpful. Probably. He didn't want to. But if she was stiff or sore later, he'd have to feel it, so Hidan got up and folded her into the big seat more comfortably. Only then did he slump against the arm Konan rested on, and sit there listening to her breath while not moving a muscle. It felt _great_. He closed his eyes and fell asleep after a few minutes. It was glorious.

**Yahiko**

Yahiko sat in the bathroom of his room, glancing around every so often. He knew full well there was nobody, except maybe for ghosts the demon kid could've sent. The demon kid wouldn't tell anyone, would he? Yahiko promised to be extra boring if that happened and hoped the kid heard. There was no one else to see so he opened the lid of the chest and looked in.

He didn't see its contents, but rather Hidan standing there earlier grinning and trying out his new body, extending an arm and rotating it from side to side and wiggling his fingers with the glee of a child on Christmas putting together a contraption that was _sure_ to be unlike anything he'd seen before, _sure_ to. Hidan was weird. He seemed very happy with being weird. Yahiko wondered just what kind of weird Hidan was. _How could he just turn into a girl like that and have it not be strange? Is he maybe…_ But Yahiko had never heard of _anything _that could make an important part of one's identity be not important. _What is he? _

At least there was a great possibility that Hidan would enjoy the contents of Yahiko's chest and not find them strange. It felt good to consider sharing them with someone else. Yahiko felt a pang of guilt that it wasn't Nagato. _But he's so much more than me… He wouldn't understand. _Hidan seemed like he could understand anything.

Yahiko closed the chest and returned it to its place, which was much too out in the open for his comfort. Anyone could see it if they walked in here. He shivered and contemplated prying loose some of the wall between the toilet and the sink, hiding it there. The idea was compelling. He considered it for a good several minutes.

Yahiko's contemplations ended when he winced and realized he'd been trying to scratch at the makeshift bandages on his cheek. They itched, and he saw a lot of them had turned red when he looked in the mirror. Nobody had gotten around to changing them for proper bandages yet. Yahiko watched some more redness grow in one corner and winced again. Scratching was a very bad thing to do. Yet the amount they itched made his eyes tear almost as much as the pain did. He had to do something!

This model of sink did not have a stopper in the drain, so he hurried all the way to the kitchen and got a can to put over it. Thank gods the sink was deep enough for that to work. He rubbed his hands and twisted his fingers together as he waited for the water to finish running. His cheek twitched. That itself was bad and caused small twinges of pain, but it relieved the itching a little so he couldn't stop. Finally the water was ready!

He pushed the itching to the side enough to concentrate on his chakra, gathering the water he'd collected into a ball and holding it to the side of his face. _Oh, gods, that's better! _The itching disappeared immediately, and the pain too. Yahiko closed his eyes and stood in pure bliss, savoring the lack of discomfort around his wound.

He opened his eyes lazily, like someone who has just been sleeping, to check himself in the mirror. The ball of water had a lot more red in it than he'd expected. His heart took a leap. Yahiko also noticed that the paper covering his wounds was intact and not behaving at all like paper in water should. He concentrated on the feeling of no itching or pain and held onto it as he took the water away from his face. He put it back in the sink and removed the can so it could drain, then put the can back and poured another sinkful. While it poured, Yahiko ran a finger over the paper on his face. It felt slick. He wrinkled his eyebrows in confusion and looked closer. The itching was back. He splashed some water upwards onto the bandage. It ran off the paper's surface like water off a duck.

_Huh? Is it covered with oil or something? _That hypothesis made sense to Yahiko's fingers. _No wonder it itches. _He carefully peeled the paper away from his cheek, and gasped. The side of his face was covered with blood still, which was now free to run down to his chin and drip off. _It itched so very much._ His eyes teared and he immediately stopped the water, gathered what he had into a ball and got it to his face as fast as possible. _Ow! Itching hurts! Oh gods no wonder it was so red. _The pain disappeared again. There was another, longer period of time spent savoring the relief. Yahiko only opened his eyes when his arms grew tired of this position and his chakra started to waver.

The ball was much more red than the first one, almost solid. It looked like a ball of blood itself. _Could I have gathered up all the blood like that? It might have been faster. _He put it in the sink and took the can away again, then started pouring a third sinkful of water. The can was noticeably bloodstained this time. It would have to be opened and used immediately for psychological comfort, and Yahiko thought he should be the one to do so since it was his blood. It was a small thing of canned soup. He could manage that.

Yahiko looked down at the paper where he'd dropped it in the terrible itching. He'd dropped it inside-up, and the inside was c_overed_ with his blood. It wasn't dripping anywhere, only a thin layer, but Yahiko could still tell it was a lot more blood than the paper had absorbed. The oil or whatever that waterproofed it did not a very good bandage make. Yahiko picked it up by a very small corner and dropped it in the trash.

His face was much cleaner, and Yahiko was happy to note that nothing was still bleeding. It was a little unrealistic for such long scratches in so short a time. Did ninjas heal faster than regular people? That was handy. He took the third sinkful of water and eased the (much improved) itching yet again. _Ahhhhh. _Oh, that was wonderful. Yahiko put it back in the sink and exclaimed "What?" aloud when he saw himself in the mirror.

His scratches looked different. His skin was not red and sore-looking. Redness lasted _longer_ than bleeding did, but it had gone away in a _shorter_ time. He touched one scratch mark softly. It was not tender like it should have been. But, when Yahiko took his hand away, he saw some red starting to creep back in around the wound! _Is it getting sore? That doesn't make any sense! Wounds don't unheal! _This one was. It was getting inflamed and red again before his very eyes. Yahiko could not believe it.

The itching returned. Yahiko ran a finger up and down the worst scratch, relieving it very little. He glanced down at the water. It was sink water like he'd poured three times by now. He looked to the left at his hand. That was the source of the chakra he'd been using to stir the water.

He channeled some chakra through his finger into his face. The itching went away again. Yahiko watched the redness disappear. It took longer because his chakra had to spread without the help of water, but it happened. Yahiko's mouth was getting noticeably dry from hanging open, as were his eyes. He blinked and swallowed. _Holy crap. I have healing powers. _Or at least pain relieving powers; he didn't see anything actually closing, but the redness and itching stayed away and there was no bleeding. _Holy crap. _

Yahiko took his hand away and waited for some redness to come back. It came back a little slower, but he didn't think there was a significant difference in the time it took for his body to respond to germs entering his wounds. The scratch marks weren't better at all. Yahiko concentrated on his left cheek and willed his chakra to go there. Would it work? His chakra stayed in his face. Yahiko had to really force it to the surface. Not much happened once it got there. Yahiko thought he could feel some deeper change, but nothing in the mirror was different. He relaxed and applied chakra with his hand again.

He started to smile. _I have some kind of healing powers! _Now _that_ was something he could really use, and use often! He ran to show Nagato.

**In the forest**

Water was splashing. The kind person was happy. He was happy that he had new powers and that the strong person was with him. He was happy because he could be kind like he was, could be even more of himself. The strong person was happy because he was also kind, though he did not have kind powers like the other one did. They played with the water because they were happy.

Did the kind person know how much power he had? Was he the right kind? Maybe he could be taught if he was. Or at least it would be good for kind people to be together.

They were tired under the happy. Maybe later.

The sun was soft and warm, and the hill was so tall and steep. The sun felt kind, too. It must be kind because it fed the plants, and the plants were the right things and everything. The last plants had been so long ago. They were so dim. Lost.

_Lost. _Going back to the last time was hard. This was okay. The people were here. They were good. The plants waved hello. They were strong and green. It was their season. They called to each other in smells. Like a quilt. Quilts went in all different crossing directions too, like the smells. There were bees very far away.

The plants stopped. There was a very big door. There was a not very big window that was open. The floor smelled of sitting for a very long time. It was quiet. A mouse had been in the room sometime. It smelled good. It had a nest in the next room. It tasted good too, but it was so big.

The plants waved hello again. They were closer together and didn't know anything about stone or sitting or mice. A clump of dark fur was caught in a bush where someone hadn't been careful. Or maybe they had. It could be good sometimes to leave some fur so people knew where you were.

_Lost. _Long fur wasn't very thick. Nobody knew what it smelled like. Nobody knew where it came from. It would not be good to leave fur. The smells were different. They were warmer. They would not be good to eat because only mice were good to eat. Mice and crickets. Sometimes crickets were lazy and did not jump though they could. Mice and crickets and birds. Sometimes birds did not fly when they could. The kind person was smarter than crickets or birds because he knew to be what he was as much as he could. He would be kind when he could.

There was the smell of blood. There was also the smell of happy and chasing and teeth. It was good.

The house was noisy. Noise was bad. Maybe later.

The other house was not noisy. Nobody was here now. They took a step out and a step back, were here and not here. Small, testing, not sure. They didn't know the other houses. Maybe later.

The kind person's house was tired. They were not sure, but not small. The house was not noisy because they were tired. There was stone behind the house to make a good stage. It had cracks. Maybe there were flower seeds in town.

There were flower seeds in town. They were small and happy. They were happier when they were not small. The stone had flowers coming out of it now. It looked much better.

The tall tree in the forest was tall enough to see over all the others. The tall branches of it had birds in them that sometimes hid the forest when the birds were feeling friendly. The birds were coming back and feeling very friendly. They were very hungry. They liked the leftover flower seeds. One of the birds was very tired. It tasted good even though it was thin. It was crunchy.

The sun was up and high and flying. It was happy. It must have been happy, because it was supposed to be bright and flying and it was. It was too kind to not be happy. It was very, very warm. It was not good to sleep in the tall tree, because the sun and wind could play tricks together. The stone never played tricks. The water made holes in the stone on the river. Those were good to sleep in.

The holes were very cool and dark. They were more cool and dark later. The sun was getting tired, and the wind was bored so it was running and flying everywhere. There were many crickets under a log. They were crunchy. They were spiny on their legs. The kind person and strong person were gone. They were tired. The big person and claw person sat. They talked but were quiet. They were alone together. The big person was happy because claw person fit with him and liked to be with him. The big person wanted longer hair. Long hair wasn't everything. Sometimes it snarled, and sometimes it was scary when people couldn't see you in the dark. _Lost._

The big person could see around to find out where he was, but they were alone together. Maybe later.

The kind person brought water for the flowers. The stone was all wet and had a lot more dirt piled around the flowers. They were extra happy. The forest was quiet.

There weren't so many mice in the night, and everyone was quiet. They were good to play with. Maybe later.

The dark person was very happy. He was good to play with and he was big and he was _now._

**Itachi**

Itachi petted Samehada and stared up at the stars. This far from town, the sky was still too bright to see much, but he could make out Orion. He'd heard some dire predictions about the red star on Orion's shoulder. Itachi wondered if he wanted to live to see the stars change or not. It was a curse to wish that someone's life be interesting.

Samehada nudged at Itachi's side, taking him out of his thoughts. Itachi tried to figure out what the shark wanted. "Do you want to know what I was just thinking of?"

Samehada shook his entire body.

"Do you want to know why Kisame's grumpy and tired?"

Samehada shook his whole body again, then turned and began to whine in a specific direction. West. _Of course. _Itachi should have thought of this himself. "I see. You want to hear about our battle, is that it?"

Samehada nodded very strongly. Itachi paused to consider how he should tell it. He hadn't seen the whole thing, after all. So he started with Konan's version, and elaborated afterwards with what he knew and what he'd learned. Samehada was a great listener, lunging forward and snapping his teeth on an imaginary enemy when Itachi described Nagato's ambush, lashing his teeth in disappointment when she got away, wiggling all over the place to the point where he fell backwards at Yahiko and Kisame's ambush, and lolling his tongue out in what looked like wonder after Itachi rolled him back over and finished with himself and the succubus being run over by the bird.

Samehada also whimpered when Itachi said that the demon had gotten free and attacked Sasori, and burst into loud howling sobs when the demon attacked Yahiko. Itachi shut up after that and held the shark as close as he could, trying to sooth Samehada. Nothing seemed to be working. He'd never suspected that Samehada cared about Yahiko that much. _He does get along well with animals…_ Itachi told Samehada that Yahiko had wanted to fight the demon, that he was very brave and looked very strong, and that he was happy after Konan rescued him. The shark quieted down to sniffles. Itachi offered to bring him to meet Yahiko as proof that the shark's other favorite person was okay. Samehada nodded.

Itachi would have stopped in the doorway to Yahiko's room as soon as he saw the man was asleep, but Samehada dashed in and leaped straight into Yahiko's bed somehow. Yahiko woke up and switched on the light. "Samehada? Hello! What are you doing here?"

"I told him the story of our battle with the succubus, and he was very upset to hear you'd been attacked," Itachi explained.

"Oh! Don't worry about me, Same. Look." Yahiko turned his head to reveal his left cheek, which was obviously all scratched up, but not nearly as red or bleeding as it should have been. "I have healing powers, apparently." He petted Samehada and turned his uninjured cheek for Samehada to lick.

"Healing powers?" Itachi wouldn't deny the evidence of his eyes, but if Yahiko had healing powers why hadn't anyone mentioned them?

"I discovered it earlier," Yahiko started to explain. "Hey, Same, get off me! So, my bandages were itching badly earlier, and I'd tried something a few days ago where I used my chakra to hold water together in a ball and stir it to clean wounds. I did it again and the itching went away completely. I took off the bandages and washed all the blood away, and when I was done nothing was bleeding. So I thought ninjas just heal faster than normal, but then I did it again and I saw a difference in the mirror from before I did it to after. And then I saw that difference _reverse_. That was how I accidentally figured out that my chakra alone can do things."

"Your scratches still look very bad. They must be rather weak. And why hasn't Konan said anything about them?" She would tell Yahiko about abilities he was so happy with, right?

Yahiko shrugged. "I tried channeling chakra to my face directly, but it didn't work very well because my chakra stayed inside my body. I have to deliberately apply it from outside to do anything. She probably didn't know."

"Hmm." Interesting. So they had abilities that Konan did not know anything about after all. "This raises an obvious question."

Yahiko and Samehada turned to look at him. "What question?"

Itachi left the doorway to sit on the end of the bed where he could reach Samehada. "I have to wonder now exactly how she knew our originals. All she's said is that she worked with them, and I have a feeling as if it wasn't the same kind of relationship as she has with us. How exactly did she know them?"

Yahiko sat up and put his chin in his hands. "Well, she likes Hidan, and gets along really well with Nagato. She doesn't get along with me at all. But me and Nagato always go together, and she doesn't seem surprised by that. Hey, everyone else does too. You and Kisame were friends before she got all of us together, right? Kakuzu knows Hidan better than anyone. And Sasori and Deidara seem to know each other better than anyone, too." Yahiko had the lightbulb look behind his eyes as he finally made these connections, and he pumped a fist and smiled proudly when he finished.

Itachi met his eyes and stopped petting Samehada. "You're right. I hadn't noticed that before." He thought quickly, putting all these things together. "So if our relationships are similar to our personalities, and they are a little like our originals'... Then, that implies our originals were arranged in pairs as well. She's described it in strictly professional terms. Which makes sense, because each pair has very complementary personalities. If they can get along, complementary personalities can be very productive together."

Yahiko giggled. "So our originals worked together, and got along at least that well! Great."

"And, taking into account the rest of what you noticed, at least some relationships between our originals were personal," Itachi finished. "So what we had this morning, with everyone working to accomplish some common goal, is probably the most like what our originals did."

Yahiko sighed. "Wonder why she doesn't talk about it?"

"We aren't our originals. Similar, but not the same. It must be like having found a replacement family. Is there any wonder she won't open up about her first?"

Yahiko was quiet. He looked down, and Itachi could see something in his expression. Itachi waited for whatever it was to come out. Yahiko whispered, "You remember what I told you about my parents?"

Itachi did.

"I guess I know something about what it's like to have a replacement family." Yahiko's eyes looked a little moister as he softly petted Samehada. The shark was making low, short churring noises of sympathy. "I haven't even told Nagato everything. You're right." He looked up as if he could see through walls. Yahiko's room was in the same hallway as Konan's, on the opposite side. Itachi didn't need to look to know what Yahiko was looking at.

"She may not appreciate attempting to build a connection all at once," he warned. "Be careful."

"I know. I will." Yahiko shook his head and returned to patting Samehada. "I just wish I knew why she dislikes me so much. Why did she and my original have problems, if I can have common ground with her and he was mostly like me? It doesn't make sense."

Itachi had wondered that too, like everyone else. He still didn't have any idea. Maybe Yahiko's original had accidentally hurt her at some point and she hadn't forgiven him yet. Maybe it was a misunderstanding - she didn't seem very optimistic about people, and Yahiko might have seemed too good to be true. Maybe there'd been competition over Nagato. He couldn't say, and wouldn't speak until he could. He just nodded along with Yahiko's opinion that it didn't make sense.

"I've just got to show her I'm different," Yahiko declared. "She'll learn to tell me apart, and then we'll get along better because I haven't done anything to her. It'll be fine."

Itachi nodded again. "That's the most realistic thing to do."

.

**A/N: There was a whole huge stretch of time where nothing was happening, which I was unwilling to gloss over and thought it would be confusing to skip. That's probably not going to happen very much, so don't hold your breath waiting for another scene from a side character's perspective. Although they _are_ super fun to write...**

**This isn't the end of the "dealing with the succubus" miniarc. You'll know it when the chapter titles go back to normal. There's one more as of right now. **

**Goshdarnit, it's taking forever to get to the cool thing Hidan thought of. That'll be after this thing ends, so, in two chapters at least. Have fun and don't die of suffocation, y'all!**


	32. The Party

**A/N: Because every completed mission deserves a party. **

**Content warning for possibly inaccurate discussion of Christianity. There is no deliberate insult, nor deliberate misinformation. I'm just doing my best to remember what my classes said about it. **

**.**

**Hidan**

_*yawn* Mmm. Nice._

Hidan still felt relaxed and loose-limbed, like someone who has not fully awoken yet. Lying in the back of Kakuzu's pickup truck with his head leaning against the cabin might change that, but for now it was not very uncomfortable. He'd been sitting there for maybe 20 minutes. Perhaps it would start to hurt around the 30 minute mark.

Hidan doubted it would ever really hurt, given the company he had. Konan sat next to him, feeling the way he felt, with the addition of having imaginary rocks strapped to her limbs. Hidan remembered the race where he'd used up his chakra. He hadn't actually used all of it like Konan had claimed; he'd had enough to keep the chakra vessels in his major organs open. Hidan wondered what it would have felt like if his brain had started to cramp. If the chakra vessels in his head and heart had collapsed, he imagined that would've put an end to their explorations really fuckin' quick. So he hadn't used quite that much chakra. But he was familiar with the feeling of collapsed chakra vessels all around the body, and he was glad they both had high pain tolerance. It hurt _like fuck_.

The beast cramps hurt almost as much, in fact, as his chest did right now. The entire area around his heart was under high pressure. Maybe he had injured himself after all.

No, he hadn't. He knew better than that.

"It was like this back home in the Rain Village," Konan murmured. She had no need to tell him what she meant. At the moment she said it, Hidan was staring up at the leaves overhead. They blotted out all stars, and left the two humans sitting in a parked car around the side of an abandoned hotel feeling as though they were really in a small, warm and very safe den. Insects buzzed all around them, making another bubble of noise. They hadn't been disturbed for the last five minutes since Hidan had heard a small rustle in the forest, and it felt as though they had never been.

"Can I ask about your family? The one you were born with, I mean." Hidan wondered what it was like to be born with a family. To not ever have to introduce yourself, to know how to get along and where you fit without knowing how you know that or, he suspected, knowing _that_ you know it. Maybe it was like how he got along with his own body. He knew his muscles as himself and had patterns of movement he fell into, over and over again. Maybe it felt like that, except with other people.

"You may." She fell silent. Hidan waited a decorous few seconds to say anything.

"What did it feel like? The closest thing I can think of is how I know my own body, and how I get along with all my muscles and I move just like that and not differently, and shit. Is it like that?"

Konan chuckled quietly. "How coherent." She turned her head to look away from Hidan, towards the building. "Maybe for other people, having a family is like that," she murmured. "Not for me, and probably not for you either."

The high pressure feeling spread upwards as Hidan wondered what she meant. "Bad?" he asked.

"No. I just didn't have that sense of knowing where I was or how to move. I still don't know what was wrong." She said this flatly, distantly, looking at blank gray siding.

The feeling spread downwards, as well. Hidan wondered if he should hold her hand. He did. Suddenly the feeling was everywhere, including his head, and Hidan felt mentally like crying except he couldn't think enough to do so.

He let go of her hand. This did not make him feel better in a time span that could be called quick. "Your brain is tired and bad-feeling," he told her.

"I know. It's been everything but quiet for a while." Konan turned over so she was on her side, looking at him. "Give me time." She wrapped her arms around Hidan's shoulders and pulled herself inward, settling her head into the curve of his neck. The all-over feeling came back. Hidan did not resist it this time. He stroked her hair.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. The pressure was still strongest in his chest and had suddenly surged upward to his face. "I fucked up." His eyes felt it.

Konan opened her eyes. "What did you fuck up?" she asked. The bad feeling shifted in her.

"The planning." Hidan held her more tightly. "I didn't think of anything that really happened. Itachi told me about using houses for ambushes and shit when I told them the plan, and I didn't think about it then either. I had this totally wrong idea of everything. I thought I was awesome." He sniffed. "But it turned into a clusterfuck."

Konan reached up to the base of his hairline around his neck. "Sometimes that isn't what a plan is supposed to do," she whispered.

Hidan rubbed away the water dripping down his face. "What's a plan supposed to do?"

Konan explained, "Sometimes a plan isn't supposed to become reality. This is most true when facing an enemy you've never fought before. Nothing will come out as predicted. But, because you thought of how it might come out, you have material to make choices from, and because you made an idea of the situation that you could control, that idea gives you courage." She lifted her head and nudged his jaw. "Half a battle is in the mind. You made an excellent plan. And if it didn't become reality, that was because you didn't know reality. That problem should correct itself with training."

Hidan sniffed again. "So if I just get to know everyone and their powers, it'll all be okay?"

"Yes. Just as I told Nagato." Konan settled down into his shoulder again. "Give it time." She closed her eyes, but Hidan still felt her. The bad feeling was changed. He closed his eyes too and felt at peace. They rested together as one. The wind brushed both their faces. Hidan lost track of if that was her arm or his. It didn't matter. They breathed together.

There was something different, a disturbance. Hidan opened his eyes. Sasori looked back at him, curious but withdrawn. "Yahiko wants to have a party to celebrate," he warned. "We'll handle the planning." The redhead left.

There was another disturbance at the mention of Yahiko's name. Hidan stroked her hair. He had no idea what was happening, but maybe if he had confidence and got to know her more, it would all turn out well. He just had to give them time.

**Nagato**

_I'm staring. That's rude. I should be listening. _Nagato couldn't stop staring. Yahiko had only used his cheek for demonstration purposes earlier, and the news was so good that Nagato hadn't paid attention. Facing Yahiko now, he couldn't stop looking. _He can't use chakra on it all the time. He needs proper bandages. _

"What do you think?" Yahiko looked at him expectantly.

"I think you should get real bandages. Your cheek is freaking me out. I keep thinking of infection or it starting to bleed again."

"Oh…" Yahiko put a hand to his cheek, which was all red, and winced. "Yeah, probably should. But after I do that, do you think we should sit in the kitchen somewhere, or grill outside?"

Nagato smiled. "If flowers magically springing out of stone isn't a sign, I don't know what is. Outside."

Yahiko grinned. "Yeah! They look so happy, too. They'll be perfect."

Nagato wondered, "It's already dark, though. How are we going to have a fire if the stone has plants on it?"

Yahiko wavered. "Maybe Kakuzu could use Stonemaker Jutsu again, and we'll have a fire on that one." He didn't sound very sure.

"We could ask Konan or Hidan."

"No you can't. They're enjoying some together time," Sasori broke in. "It's mean to disturb them for every little thing, isn't it?"

True. Nagato and Yahiko flushed slightly. "Let's go with your idea," Nagato decided. "One stone for flowers, and one for backyard fires. Assuming that one doesn't also get flowers growing out of it."

"If it does, we're never having a party back there again." Yahiko shook his head to emphasize that.

Sasori was already nodding. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I would immediately assume we were cursed if that happened."

Nagato laughed. "The curse of never being able to hold a backyard barbecue at night. That's a scary one!"

Yahiko burst out laughing too. "We'll just be forever doomed to enjoying our nice kitchen with all our friends!"

Sasori couldn't stop himself from grinning. "I'd blame it on you," he told Yahiko. "I don't know why. You just seem like that kind of person somehow."

"The kind of person who gets nice flowers to grow in stone somehow? I'd love that! Thank you for assuming that of me." Yahiko looked at Sasori with sincere gratitude. "Want a hug?"

Sasori blinked. "Um...sure." He walked over and allowed Yahiko to give him a brief hug.

"Okay! Fire, food. Do we have anything to grill it on?" Yahiko had not previously thought of that.

"We can make something up," Nagato reassured. _Amazing. He just makes anywhere he goes a better place. _Yahiko was still smiling. His eyes were wide and bright, and his tongue was sticking out a little. Nagato smiled too. Nobody could help it around Yahiko. He drew in closer.

"Hmm, okay. Fire, food, and cook it on the stone or something. Great!" Yahiko turned to Sasori. "And me and Kakuzu still have interesting things to talk about that have nothing to do with demons at all! We're good." He looked back just in case Nagato had seen something he missed.

_That look in his eyes… _"We're good," Nagato echoed. Yahiko flared brightly, brighter to Nagato's eye than the strongest pulsar. He wondered what that "together time" Sasori had mentioned involved. Did it involve somehow holding Yahiko's hand without any memory of moving? It probably did.

"Okay." Yahiko looked around. "So, I know I blurted it out to Itachi when I got the idea, and Samehada was happy, and I left to go spread the word and saw you sitting in your room looking bored, Sasori, so I never actually get around to spreading the word, unless Itachi did. Did he?"

Sasori rubbed his pointer finger with his thumb. He hadn't been bored. He'd been quietly taking stock of his life and wondering what he could possibly say if anyone asked him about the succubus. He hoped nobody would mention the succubus. He'd like to just forget what had happened. Sasori really hoped being pulled from his body hadn't made anything loose. Honestly, the whole idea of a party sounded terrible.

Nagato eyed Yahiko's still messy hair. _Would he let me put it back in order? _Nagato desperately wanted to. His fingers almost hurt with desire. No; they _did_ hurt. "Uh, well, I can go check," he justified, and left the room. Sasori and Yahiko had both been attacked. Maybe they could talk through it together. And maybe Nagato wouldn't accidentally tackle Yahiko to the ground for cuddles.

He went down the right hallway where most of them had their rooms. Samehada wriggled up to him and climbed up to his back before Nagato was fully aware of it. "Oh...hi," he greeted the shark. Samehada let out a loud and cheerful rattle.

"What is he so happy about?" Kisame wanted to know. As did Kakuzu, and Deidara, and everyone else who had heard Samehada making such a joyous racket.

"Yahiko's holding a party to celebrate," Nagato explained. Samehada somehow managed to lick every part of his head except his face in the same tongue stroke. "The stone out back has flowers in it, so we're going to need another one Kakuzu, if you're not out of chakra." _My hair is sticky! _

"..." _That's right, Kakuzu's been by himself since Hidan asked everyone to clear out. _

"Don't ask," Nagato explained poorly. "We came back from talking about Yahiko's new healing powers, and we found flowers sprouting out of the cracks all of a sudden. We have no idea where they came from."

"..." A second eyebrow raised. Kakuzu looked like he was trying to read Nagato's mind.

"Yeah… He also figured out he has some kind of healing powers. We'll mention it later." Nagato couldn't have figured out a better way to drag these three to the party if he'd tried. Itachi, standing in the back, had great fun analyzing their body language with his Sharingan.

"I want to see this," Kakuzu declared. Nagato wondered if he had any light producing jutsus. He got a flashlight instead and went out to the backyard. The stone platform was clearly filled with fully grown petunias. Their petals looked otherworldly in the white light.

"What the hell?" Kisame asked. "What the hell."

"It looks like someone bought a seed packet and just dumped all of them in, yeah," Deidara concluded.

"Doing that and then using plant-growing powers makes a lot more sense than anything else," Nagato agreed. "Wait. Konan told Yahiko to develop more plant based techniques. We should really find out who did this. They could be helpful."

Laurie, who'd been quietly standing next to Itachi this whole time, piped up. "Maybe we could leave a note?"

Nagato nodded. The worst that could happen was that nothing would happen. Laurie went off to write the note. Kisame sniffed around. He shook his head. "I can't smell anything besides blood, apparently, and there's no blood here." Samehada slithered off of Nagato's back and around the stone, then whimpered in agreement. Kisame patted his head.

"Maybe we could ask Hidan. He's like a cat; he might be able to smell something." Nagato looked around. "In the meantime, we need somewhere else to put a fire. Kakuzu?"

More earth bubbled out of the ground and hardened to stone. Deidara was doing something with his hands. Kisame noticed and asked warily, "What are you doing?"

"Oh, yeah," Deidara started, "just making some really tiny spiders, yeah. Maybe I could use them to start the fire. When are we starting it?"

**General**

The fire was underway a half hour later, after they decided what to cook. As Yahiko had thought, the stone platform was large enough that there was stone spread all around the fire. Deidara had his hands out in appreciation, and observed that the surrounding stone was hot in only a few minutes. Yahiko clapped his hands and raced in to get the meat. Samehada rumbled unhappily and retreated from the fire, hiding behind Kisame's back. Sasori went to tell Hidan and Konan that they were starting the party.

Hidan was in the backyard before Sasori returned. "A. I know how to cook meat like nobody's business, and B. I've been wondering for the last forever what you guys were so curious about, and I've been going out of my skin!" he justified. "What was it?"

"Flowers," Kakuzu pointed. Hidan followed his finger and went to examine the stone.

"They're beautiful, right?" Laurie asked.

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan circled the stone on all fours. "I smell snake."

Yahiko gasped. "There was a kid that was like a snake, right? He did this?"

Hidan came back and gave Yahiko a punch on the shoulder. "Feels like it. Have fun with your new buddy." He smirked. "If you can find him."

"Find him?" Laurie sounded very worried. "Are we talking about a lost child? Oh my god. Is he okay?"

"I'm pretty sure he is," Hidan said doubtfully. "He's fine, if not super dazzlingly fantastically great. I can probably find him anyway. His feelings are really obvious."

Sasori came back with Konan. Konan thumped down beside the fire. The light highlighted her face and threw the bags under her eyes and her general pallor into sharp relief. The idle conversation stopped.

Sasori sat down on her left, and Hidan on her right. Hidan put a hand around her shoulders and allowed her to lean on him. Konan still stared blankly into the fire. "I get that," Sasori whispered. He stared into the fire too. He had mixed feelings about not being the only one who wasn't in the party mood.

Yahiko looked to Nagato. Nagato silently advised _Leave them be_, so Yahiko did. Turning to the rest of the assembled group, he asked, "So, does anyone want to hear about Jesus while we wait?"

"Jesus?" Deidara asked. What did Jesus have to do with - "Oh, you mean the water, yeah?"

"Water?" Laurie asked Deidara. Samehada whined, no doubt wondering if he could have any.

Dei nodded. "Yeah. Clay's found around water, yeah, so I went to the river to get some, and I fell in. I actually fell in a couple times." He chuckled nervously. "It was no big deal, I was fine. The second time, my chakra decided to be useful for once, so I was sitting on the water, hm."

"You too?" Yahiko was worried and delighted at the same time. "I was using my chakra to climb trees and jump from one tree to another, like a monkey, and I went to find Kakuzu that way, but I lost focus and fell into the stream. Well, not really. I rolled across the surface of it! It was the craziest thing I've ever experienced."

"And I walked on it," Kakuzu finished. "So now we're wondering if Jesus was a ninja. Who thinks what?"

Laurie's head swiveled like a bobblehead turned sideways. "Wait, you guys...You can do things like that? I know you can move water around, but walking on it...is different…" Why was walking on water any different than throwing water? She stopped and looked down, confused. They were about equally in defiance of physics. Why did she feel like this?

Itachi contemplated the stars. "Our powers are based in chakra. Maybe Jesus had chakra, or maybe he had similar powers based in something else. Chakra may not be the only thing that can grant this ability."

"We asked Konan," Yahiko continued, "and she said every ninja from her world learns to do this. It's common. But, Jesus probably didn't have chakra because he was in this world and not that one, so it probably wasn't the same. I think Itachi's right."

"We're in this world, and we have chakra," Nagato pointed out.

"Yeah, but we're not the same. Even if something happened so there was chakra around, only people from Konan's world could use it. They have different body parts to use chakra with." Yahiko gestured at himself and shrugged. So as long as they assumed Jesus was born to normal people of this world, chakra was out of the question.

"Then what? Where else do powers come from, hm?" Deidara asked.

Hidan scratched his head. "There are some other things that qualify as weird shit, but they do other things. I don't know anything else that makes people walk on water."

That got a lot of eyes on him. The fire crackled all by itself, surrounded by an early cricket and silence. Even the cricket went quiet and hopped away, hearing the silence and thinking it might have been seen. "What do you mean, other things?" Kakuzu asked.

Konan sat up and looked at Hidan too, but for another reason. "You don't have to say anything," she reassured him. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. _Bullshit. _

Hidan scratched more. "Well...like...the demon kid, or the other kid, or like those cool powers Yahiko has. Hey, dipface, tell us about 'em!"

Yahiko sat up and touched his newly bandaged cheek. "Oh, well, I can't exactly show them with these on…"

"I'm immortal," Hidan offered. Before anyone could stop him he'd taken one of Konan's kunai and drawn two long gashes down the back of his right forearm. "Use this!"

Hidan held his forearm out to Yahiko, stretching it across Nagato's lap. Several drops of blood spattered Nagato's pants. He recoiled and circled around to Yahiko's right side in a hurry. Yahiko winced and scooted closer, took Hidan's hand gently in his own. "I need water," he requested.

Sasori reached over to the drinks and threw him a water bottle. Yahiko put Hidan's arm down and took it. Unscrewing the cap, he pushed his chakra into the water through his thumb before carefully tilting the bottle. _It's going to spill everywhere! _The water did not spill everywhere. He was able to hold it together in his hand easily, and applied it quickly to Hidan's self-inflicted wounds.

The water turned crimson. While not as much blood as if Hidan had slit his wrists, it was still a lot. Yahiko applied as much chakra as he could without breaking up the water. His stomach turned at the amount of blood that had already dripped off Hidan's arm, but he did not look away. A rustling at his side announced that Same had joined him.

When he threw the bloody water away a minute later (making the shark squeal in delight and race to lick it up), small indrawn breaths and gasps could be heard around the fire. Deidara and Laurie on the other side got to their feet to see over the fire, and everyone else crowded in closer. Konan's mouth was on the verge of hanging open. Nobody spoke before the miracle in front of them. Hidan's arm was not bleeding at all!

"It feels good, too! No pain, no itching," Hidan reported. Some amazed exclamations and half-whispered _Wow_s greeted this news. Nagato looked up and down, between Hidan's arm in the air and the pool of blood on the ground below it. His mouth hung open fully. There were no words.

Yahiko had long since turned tomato red and started struggling not to smile. He lost his struggle and giggled. "Yeah, my cheek was the same way," he muttered lamely. _Why am I even speaking? _He went back to trying not to smile.

Konan knocked on Hidan's shoulder, and received his arm to investigate. She called up some paper and formed it into a screen blocking Hidan's view of his own arm, dragging him closer to the fire as she did so. The white paper reflected the firelight and helped her view. She looked closely at new lines of blood starting to well up from the wounds, laid a palm over the skin where blood was not yet starting to leak again, and poked Hidan in one place where he was not bleeding and another place where he was. Hidan winced at the second.

"There is such a thing as medical jutsu," she announced, "but this is not medical jutsu. Medical jutsu may be used to heal wounds and alter flesh. These wounds have not been healed at all. They have only been temporarily closed against infection, relieved from pain, and had their inflammation stopped. This is nothing I have ever seen before." She looked sideways in Yahiko's direction.

He shuffled around. "Yeah, that's what I saw too," he agreed. "Um, all I did was apply chakra. This was an accident, actually. I had the idea of using water to clean wounds, and I used my chakra to stir the water, and then I noticed that it suddenly didn't hurt anymore after I did that. The water spreads it out better, but it's my chakra doing that." He ducked his head, now even redder than a tomato.

"This can't be medical chakra," Konan insisted. "Medical techniques are techniques. They must be used deliberately, and they can be used for anything. A malicious medic could alter flesh for the worse as much as for the better. This…" She shook her head. "It's incredible. Beyond the bounds of realism. It's just what I would expect from you."

The very air seemed to stop flowing when she said that. Yahiko forgot to do anything, including blink. _It's just what I would expect from you. _Those words hung in the air and in everyone's minds, demanding attention. Each word spoke a universe of meaning. _It_ \- good things, healing. _Just_ \- only good things and healing, nothing else. _What I would expect_ \- what I have always expected, what I know. _From you_ \- good things belong to you; you are a good person.

Water pooled in Yahiko's eyes, and not from lack of blinking. All this time, she'd avoided his gaze. All this time, he'd caused her pain, sent her running and sometimes made her fight him off. All this time, he'd wondered what was wrong with him, why and how his very existence was hurtful, tried everything he could think of to change that. And now, she said, as easily as if a committee of gods had declared it truth, that she had always believed he could defy the bounds of realism to take away pain and hurt.

Tears dripped into the grass. How long had she believed in him? How had he never seen it? Yahiko smiled through his tears, a smile nothing and no one could hold back. A weight was off his heart, and he would move all the boundaries of realism to keep it off.

Mental images of her, ideas of what she was, updated around the fire. Nagato took Yahiko's hand. This was proof of what he'd suspected earlier, and he still didn't know what to make of it. How much did they actually know of her? Did anyone know anything at all?

Hidan reached as far back as he could, grabbed the bag of pork slices, and flipped them onto the fire. He reached again, came back with a jar of a little sauce he'd come up with some years ago, and began applying it inconspicuously to the side of the meat that was cooked first. He worked over the forearm that Konan was still holding, waiting for these yahoos to catch up.

Konan was frozen, once more the object of a circle of eyes. She had no idea what to make of them this time. They stared at her with a kind of numbness and shock that gave away no clues for what had caused it. Hidan's tongue stuck out as he performed his chef's duties, the only person not looking at her. What had she done that was so surprising? She heard a small sniffle to her right.

Yahiko was crying. He fought to hold his eyes open against the natural instinct to screw them shut, and was losing. Salt water formed a ribbon on his lips and dripped into his smile. For the first time since her life had shattered so many years before, Konan stared into his face and did not look away. He heaved with sobs, and stopped smiling in favor of contorting his face as if to wring his eyes dry. He brought up one arm to wipe his face dry on its sleeve. This only resulted in a wet sleeve as well as a wet face. Still he trembled, shook, like he was trying to work his way into believing something. Samehada licked at his face speculatively and rumbled reassurance.

Konan felt...ill. A deep weight was in her, stopping her from reaching out to him. He shook with happiness, happiness that sent Konan back to all the memories that were now bitter and all the visions of herself she'd long since discarded as falsehoods. Her teeth began to chatter and her heart beat faster. Fear? Yes, of course. What would happen to him now that he believed in her? Her skin grew cold all over. History had a funny way of repeating itself, didn't it? Her fingers tightened. Anger. She could not allow history to repeat.

Hidan grabbed her wrist and squeezed, popping her fingers open and away from his forearm. Yahiko wiped his face with his other sleeve, much more successfully. Nagato held Yahiko's hand right where it was, and Hidan continued to squeeze Konan's wrist. His purple eyes looked into hers for a glance, before turning away to guide his arm onto the hot stone to retrieve the meat and pile it on a paper plate. Anger or no, Konan would not wrestle herself free of him. She turned away.

Yahiko sniffled still, and his eyes felt sore. He'd done it. He'd made himself into someone she could believe in. A new strength flowed in Yahiko's whole chest, easing the trembling. He would do it. His hands curled with the new strength, and he swore that he would always continue to be someone she could believe in. Nagato's hand tightened too, answering with a determination to stand beside him and help. Nagato was the best friend anyone could hope for. And Samehada was amazing, too. He gathered the shark under his arm.

The smell of the meat sent stomachs growling. Hidan let go of Konan's wrist to reach back for the stack of paper plates, and he served everyone a slice before putting on more. Kisame was gratified to see that Same got a slice, too, which he swallowed whole. They ate in peace. Yahiko's chest and face eased, Konan tore scraps of meat gently with her teeth, and everything was all right.

In every group, there is a certain role which must be fulfilled by one person or another if that group is to become more than a smattering of individuals. That role is "the idiot." The Idiot must be brave and stupid enough to cross the most clearly stated boundaries and bring down trouble, hoping the trouble will vaporize and come down as a soft spring cloud instead. If they do their job right, it does. When the Akatsuki were all finished eating, they looked around. Someone had to do it. Someone had to say it. Someone had to tread on bomb-laden ground, or this party was over.

Sasori cleared his throat. "What does that mean?" he asked Konan.

Konan put down her plate. "Chakra is partly physical energy, partly spiritual," she answered. "His spirit has very strong tendencies toward relieving pain. Those tendencies might be expressed in his chakra." Disaster was averted, the trouble vaporized, and conversation began to flow again. Hidan served the next round of meat, and decided to wait to put on more.

"Wait, spiritual?" Laurie's inner scientist latched on to that. "Do you mean it's been actually proven in your world that people have souls?"

Konan looked blank. "Obviously."

"No, not obviously. Souls can't be seen through any of our measurable senses. There's nothing to definitely, without a doubt, prove they exist. Many people believe they have an existence beyond their body, but no one can say it as a fact." Laurie stuffed her whole slice in her mouth and chewed quickly. She was on her home ground.

"Are ghosts and such present in this world?" Konan asked. She stuffed the rest of her slice in her mouth, savoring it as she waited for Laurie's response. There was still so much about this world she hadn't learned, and what she could glimpse was _fascinating._

Laurie's eyes were alight. "The idea of ghosts exists, but we can't be sure of the reality of them. If ghosts really exist, why do so many of the most popular videos or pictures of them turn out to be faked? Either they don't get along with the ways we have of recording data, or they're just stories."

"What about the occasional person who comes very close to death, or even dies temporarily? Their testimony should be evidence enough."

"Not really. Nobody can show where that testimony comes from. Our senses are based in our brains, so if someone who's brain is definitely working strangely reports seeing something strange, is it more likely that their report is real or that their brain was flipping out? If someone with an entirely normal brain that could be shown to have everything 100% in order saw a ghost, it would be acceptable as evidence. But if someone dies temporarily and saws they saw a light, how do you know it's not the light of the operating room or a hallucination?" Laurie argued so passionately on the side of skepticism, anyone would have assumed she believed it. In fact this was a Devil's Advocate argument for her. It was more fun to argue this position than her own one, because she couldn't fall back on high emotion and dogma.

Konan settled back onto her heels. "It sounds to me as if the people of this world are willing to fall back on excuse after excuse to avoid admitting the obvious."

"Maybe," Laurie forced out through her grin as she waved a plastic fork in the air. "That could be entirely true. But the world is complicated. We actually have almost no idea what a 100% normal brain looks like, and normal might not even exist. Everything could be normal or nothing could. When you start to see how much we don't know, it all gets chaotic. You can believe anything you want." She put her arms down on her crossed legs and leaned forward. "But you know what _is_ true?"

Konan pricked her ears forward.

"Some things are a lot more fun to believe than others." Laurie giggled and sat back, satisfied that she'd won. There had been no contest to win, and she didn't know what she'd won, but she felt as if she had won something anyway.

"There was a man I knew, back home, who had the same things to say. But he did not say them in the same way," Konan remembered. "He would say that all is chaos, and that means there is nothing to believe in."

"That's not true!" Yahiko yelped. " It just means you have choices, that's all! Like...I heard once that angels don't look like they have free will, but they actually do, and they just don't use it because they know what's right and what's wrong, so why would they ever choose what's wrong? Did this guy you knew want to be turned into a machine and given orders, or something? Poor guy…" He started to reflexively pat Samehada's head, making the shark purr.

"Sounds boring," Nagato agreed. "It's kind of fun to make mistakes sometimes."

"Even Jesus got himself killed," Sasori remarked. The conversation was getting really far off track.

"Wasn't that the point, yeah?" Deidara asked. "I heard he was supposed to."

Kakuzu facepalmed. Itachi decided now was a good time to add his own thoughts. "He was, because humans are fundamentally flawed and he was supposed to die with all our mistakes on him so we would not be universally damned and would be able to enter heaven after that."

"I didn't know you were religious," Laurie said. Neither had Kisame.

"I'm not, but religion is fascinating, so I have studied it. That is what I remember learning, more or less. It might not be entirely accurate as a representation of what actual believers believe, but I think that was the original idea," Itachi explained.

"If no one follows the original idea, it's pretty useless," Kisame muttered, starting to look jealously at Yahiko.

"No, because if it still exists, someone may learn it again one day and it will be revived. Ideas don't perish." Itachi thought that was self evident.

"Neither does art, yeah!" Deidara got two sodas, gave one to Itachi, and clinked them together in solidarity.

Sasori sighed. Kakuzu weighed in with, "So what is the relation? Her world has a way for people's souls to give them magic powers, and every prophet ever has claimed to have unusual powers and also be related to the divine in some way. It sounds like an entire world of prophets over there."

Hidan shook his head fiercely. "No fucking way! _Prophets_ are _religious_. This shit she's talking about is _spiritual_, which is different. They probably have prophets over there too, preaching religions, and everybody else still has souls and chakra and shit. I say false equivalence!"

"If I have a spirit strong enough to give my chakra unusual powers, what am I?" Yahiko asked while reapplying chakra to Hidan's wound. Same rejoined Kisame on the other side of the fire.

"A prophet, obviously." Sasori was only half joking. He remembered that collection of green-blues named _benevolence_ that had a place near him when he needed it.

"That's different, because that's also spiritual," Hidan countered. "A religion is a group of humans who have decided to believe the same thing. It has jack shit to do with spirits."

Konan weighed risk vs. reward in her mind and decided to take the risk. "Your original seemed very convinced that his religion was spiritually based, with Jashin-sama having a direct connection to him."

"That's because whichever fuckups called that a religion should be taught the error of their ways!" Hidan huffed. "He didn't have a fucking religion! He had a god, and guessed that other people probably had the same god, and that was fucking it! Do you see a group of people agreeing on shit in that?"

Everyone else assumed that Konan had told Hidan all about his original's religion at some point, and wondered why they were arguing. Konan knew better and carefully filed this outburst away in a steadily-growing folder labeled "Hidan - ?" Hidan proceeded to forget everything he had just said, which would have been a problem if anyone had asked him about it.

"So what am I?" Yahiko asked.

"Who gives a shit? You're awesome," Hidan disregarded the question as he turned to get a soda.

"Wait, wait, wait. Is that another thing that your world proved is real?" Laurie asked of Konan. "That gods are real?"

Konan nodded. "Hidan sacrifices to Jashin-sama and prays to him, and receives immortality. He cannot be killed by any injury. And yes, his sacrifices go somewhere. If a battle is followed up on, the blood he spilled on it has usually disappeared. Not to mention that the symbol of his religion feels strange to be around. It makes most people nervous to be around him. That can't all be explained by normal things."

"So at least one god is real?" Laurie made sure she had it right. "That changes _everything._"

"Probably more," Konan added. "When a very large and very powerful village in a neighboring country was attacked, the leader sacrificed himself to save his village from the worst of it by using a technique that reportedly summoned the grim reaper. Or a kind of god of death. It's not very clear what a shinigami is."

"Holy crap," Laurie breathed. "Does that apply to here?"

"No," Kakuzu answered. "The succubus was angry because we don't usually have this 'Jashin' around in this world, remember?"

"He might have been present before, but not as much," Konan clarified. "Not enough to have such effects as I've described. Perhaps the gods are much closer and have much stronger influence in my world than in this one."

"Anyone want meat? There's a little more," Hidan interrupted. His scalp prickled all over with the urge to either scratch or just run away from the fire entirely.

"So what did this Jesus do, besides walk on water? What was he like?" Konan changed the subject. She patted Hidan's arm gently and rubbed his back.

Itachi summarized what he knew of Jesus' life. "His followers later wrote about him in several documents that were codified into the Bible, which is the foundational document of Christianity. These documents claim that he rose from the dead several days later, and was no longer an ordinary human," Itachi finished.

"Intriguing. He really claimed that there was only one god? That can't possibly be right," Konan disagreed. "If there is one god, it comes in such a variety of flavors that are all so different from each other that it would be just as accurate to claim there are infinite gods."

"Like oceans," Hidan mumbled. "There's really only one ocean, if you trace it on a map." Konan nodded.

Itachi shrugged. "One god that is infinite, or infinite gods that are not. It really amounts to the same thing."

"Except that if you thought there was only one god, you'd have to be very careful to specify that you only worship part of it, but if you believe there are many different gods then it's easier to explain," Yahiko thought aloud. "Nobody's infinite, so we'd all have to worship whatever part of an infinite god we're best suited for. It would be a lot easier to say you just worship one or two or three closely related ones."

"Who needs a god in the first place?" Kisame argued.

Nagato calmly said, "Nobody said you had to actually do anything. Just because you have a spirit and it might go more in one direction than another, it doesn't mean you have to do anything with that knowledge. You could just treat it like an IQ test."

"The results of IQ tests are equally believable," Kakuzu joked. Itachi agreed, and was not joking.

"I don't think I'm gonna remember this later. I'd better go lie down," Hidan said in the same tone of voice one uses to say they feel sick. He turned and gave Konan a hug, and stumbled up the back stairs into the building.

Kakuzu stared after him the whole way. "Hidan's never been able to anticipate that before," he said.

"I did tell him that finding things unpleasant leads to forgetting them," Konan justified. "You heard the tone of voice he used. He has good reason to suspect that this experience might be bad enough for him to forget."

"...Thank you." It was a rare acknowledgement from Kakuzu, but he knew very well nobody else could have gotten such a handle on Hidan's memory issues. He'd been trying ever since he noticed them, and she had already gotten a dozen times farther. He could be grateful sometimes.

Konan inclined her head in gratitude, saying nothing.

"Is anyone else a little freaked out?" Nagato asked. "Two different worlds, getting close enough to mess with each other. Is this...you know…"

_Collision? _That dampened the mood. The fire sent sparks flying as bits of wood exploded. It was noticeably lower than it had been at the start of the party. Samehada left his place in Kisame's lap and stretched next to the fire. Deidara's hands were able to open their mouths when he held them out to the fire and not immediately dry out. He finished his soda and sat quietly, as everyone else was. Now that someone said it out loud, it was scary. Even the designated Idiot wouldn't cross this line of tension. Yahiko chuckled nervously.

"We get to be happy," he said while slinging an arm over Nagato's shoulders. "Let's not worry about that, any more than anything else. What can we do anyway?"

That was the best answer anyone at the fire was going to get.

Deidara yawned. "Hm," he mumbled. "So…"

Nobody wanted this party to end. Itachi and Laurie tried to remember the last time they'd had such good discussion. Nagato and Yahiko had never felt more empowered. Even Sasori said nothing.

Konan sighed. "Sasori, I have something to ask you about." And she got to her feet. Sasori got to his feet and followed, aware of others beginning to do the same. She took him around front to the little shed he would be using as his workshop.

Konan looked around. Her search was directed up and down, indicating that it wasn't just other people she worried about. Sasori wondered what exactly she was searching for. "What is it?"

Her search concluded, Konan asked, "You reported seeing one idea-color predominating, out of balance. The succubus' reaction indicated that was the one. It's certainly too much to be fully described in any human language, but describe it as close as you can. What color was it?"

Sasori hesitated. She was right; it was much too much to be described in language alone. "Blue," he started. _So inadequate. _"It was an incredibly deep, really strong blue. Way beyond that word. It felt forceful but also distant, like...pulling. I worried about getting too close. It was scary and I thought that something very, very bad would happen if it touched me." He shivered and his teeth chattered. "I...don't…" He squeezed his arm to be sure that his body was there. _I don't know why I'm alive right now._

"I understand," Konan said gently. "I've felt that too."

"You have?" The experience was so different from anything he'd experienced, Sasori found it impossible to even understand what the word "same" meant, let alone apply it to someone else's experience. "How? Where?"

"..." There were things she couldn't say about it, and things she really shouldn't. "I really shouldn't say. Just know that your body _is_ adequate protection, and nothing can touch you as long as you are in it." _Not even if you try to have it touch you, _she didn't say. His fear of it might transfer to her if she admitted that part of her experience. Konan also decided that it would be a good idea to save the part where some minimal part of it actually could reach her for some other time. Never might be a good time to share that.

Sasori shuddered. "If there's something else that could do this, I won't be able to fight it," he admitted. The risk was too much. He would never take any risk of being parted from his body if he didn't absolutely have to.

Konan nodded. "I understand. I will not ask you to, and nobody else will ask for an explanation." Her firm stance on this helped Sasori relax. He thanked her and went back around to see how Deidara and Laurie were doing and offer Laurie a ride.

Konan stayed outside, looking for glimpses of blue among the stars. Eventually she shook herself and went inside. She didn't need to have Hidan's senses to feel the slumber the entire base was in. She drifted silently through the halls, back to her room. Her inner mind was anything but silent. She wondered about the parts she had not told Sasori, and why she had not told him, and about the parts she hadn't wondered about before. She also wondered about Sasori himself. He had been scared. Konan wondered about that fear, and why she didn't feel it. She should. That was very clear.

And yet she didn't. Konan blinked upon entering her room, aware that there was something here for her to remember. If she had feared the overwhelming color that Sasori had described, she could not have taken the blank pages the demon had given her and slipped into Hidan's room to sneak them under his head. She could not have stroked his hair as he lay peacefully slumbering, his shoulders rising and falling in time with his light snoring. She could not have quietly renamed the file she had in her head, crossing out the question marks and completing it.

She did not, and so sleep came more easily than it ever had before in her entire life.

.

**A/N: I've learned the hard way this past week that I overestimate how much other people can infer from my stories. So, to anyone who has no idea what this last section means, go back and reread Chapter 7: Comfort. The character list has been updated and is now complete. **

**As an aside, I discovered sometime that there is an entry in the character list that says "Akatsuki." How lazy is that? Just pick out the specific names of whoever's most important, already. If they are so far in the background that they only matter as an organization, and your story doesn't have four characters that are actually important, it sounds like something's wrong there. Ugh, I shouldn't judge. I read another Naruto fanfic where someone listed their characters like that. I liked that story, so it must be fine. **

**Long weekend! Wooo!**

**Also, I just now discovered that this site's Doc Manager does not accept multiple question marks in a row. The missing half of Konan's mental file is supposed to have 3 of them. How annoying.**


	33. Sleepers

**A/N: : Urgh. I had Monday and Tuesday off, which means that I've effectively had only a 5 day week to write this in. [Blatant lie] Okay, fine, I did everything but the dreams yesterday. I've still had two days torn out of the normal week. Grug.**

**.**

**Yahiko**

_Yahiko lay on his back on a flat, comfortable couch. It was dark red. He looked through the glass roof at the stars. A fire burned in the fireplace behind him. The stars were swimming, and he felt at peace. _

"_Hey Nagato?" he asked. _

"_Yeah?" Nagato was suddenly sitting at the foot of the couch. _

"_Do you think I did the right thing?"_

_Nagato turned to rest one arm on the back of the couch. "Do you think you did the right thing?"_

_Yahiko turned that over in his mind. "I don't know."_

_Nagato looked up at the stars. "Well, don't worry about it." He got up and walked out of the room. _

_When he opened the door, laughter drifted up the stairs and into the room. Yahiko blinked, startled. He'd forgotten his sister was coming to visit! He twisted off the couch and ran down the stairs._

_Hidan laughed. "Heya, Sunshine. Is this where you've been hiding? Nice place," he looked around. Yahiko closed the door behind him. _

"_What are you doing here? Everyone's supposed to be dead! If anyone finds out she's here, I'll be in trouble!" Yahiko's sister waved at him. He nervously waved back. She returned to braiding Hidan's hair, which was fully grown out to an appropriate length for Hidan's female form._

_Hidan snorted. "What? She's good at this." _

_Yahiko's sister separated, gathered and twisted strands of white hair around each other with extraordinary grace. In a little over a second, she finished one braid and moved on to the next. She ran her hands through Hidan's hair appreciatively before starting. Her own hair was much like Hidan's. It was long and straight, hanging down her back and draping over her shoulder blades. Unlike Hidan, whose hair was all slicked back, she had strands framing the sides of her face too. The top of her head was much like Yahiko's, with short spikes of orange hair covering it. Her face was a little smoother than Yahiko's, and seemingly always covered with a smile. She wore the same clothes as Yahiko, and was his same height. Yahiko looked at the door nervously. _

"_Okay, you can be here. But only you, got it?" He had no idea how Hidan had gotten into the basement. This was the only door, and it was always locked. _

"_Gotcha. Me and Redhead only."_

"_What?!" Yahiko whirled around and noticed, for the first time, Nagato sitting at a table in the back of the room drinking tea. He met Yahiko's baffled stare with a faintly puzzled look. Yahiko turned back to the heavy wood door and put his hands against the side of his head, squeezing. "Oh no oh no oh no," he repeated softly to himself. Who else? Where else? "I am going to be in so much trouble," he whispered. _

_Nagato drained his cup noisily. "I like her," he announced. Yahiko's sister laughed. Yahiko looked back and was not surprised to see the two of them in the middle of a game of backgammon. _

"_I don't even know how to play backgammon," he whispered. Nagato threw something across a chessboard and cheered. Yahiko shifted nervously. She seemed to get along with everyone, at least. Everyone that had somehow managed to sneak their way down here. Yahiko wondered if there was a window or something that he didn't know about. _

"_Hey! Like my hair?" Hidan whirled around, sending his braids flying in graceful arcs. Yahiko nodded. "Good, because I'm returning the favor next."_

_Yahiko backed away. "Um, yeah, yeah, good luck with that," and he scurried out the door. The door blocked all noise, as if a mute button had been pressed for the whole passageway. Yahiko leaned his head back and sighed in relief. _

_He heard tapping, and his eyes flew open. Hidden in the darkness on the other side of the medieval dungeon-like passageway was Konan. Her foot tapped on the stone floor as she regarded him from behind some kind of red and green tapestry. The torchlight was reflected in her amber eyes. Without a word, she turned and clicked her way down the stone cobbles. She gestured out with one hand, a careless "None of my business" wave. Yahiko banged the back of his head against the door. _

_There was a faint knock from the inside of the door. Yahiko sighed. "I'm sorry."_

_On the inside of the door, there was an attempt to understand. "I don't know," Yahiko whispered. "I don't know what's going to happen. I'm scared."_

_Sympathy. Yahiko sighed again. "You deserve better. I don't know what I'm doing."_

_Amusement. Did she know what she was doing? Yahiko shook his head. No; he had to keep her safe here. It was too risky to just bet that she would make it on her own. _

"_I gotcha," Hidan waved at him. Hidan followed Konan down the passage. His braids shown in the torchlight long after the rest of him was invisible. _

_Nagato squeezed Yahiko's right hand, offering comfort and saying nothing. He leaned against the door next to Yahiko. Yahiko sighed. "Do you know?"_

_Nagato squeezed again. "You're not ready."_

**Nagato**

_I don't know! I just...I'm sorry…_

_Yahiko looked at him quizzically. "Why? Everything's beautiful." Yahiko certainly was. His hair glittered with sunshine. Against his will, Nagato was drawn forward. _

"_May I touch?" he asked Yahiko, who was sitting on a waist-high rock with his legs crossed. _

_Yahiko smiled in perfect serenity. Of course. Nagato reached out and stroked his hair. Yahiko giggled. Nagato ruffled his hair back and forth more roughly. _

_Yahiko leaped off the rock, giggling like a little girl. Her long hair lifted off her back and flowed through the air as she turned to face Nagato. Her eyes sparkled. But they did not sparkle the same way as Yahiko's eyes did normally. The strength in his masculine gaze hit Nagato like a solid force, but her sparkling eyes now had a light, airy quality that skipped off Nagato and disappeared. She was beautiful enough to draw, but Nagato wasn't in the mood for drawing now. He reached out for the man he'd always loved. "Come back!"_

_She heard far-off music and skipped away into the forest. Nagato stamped his foot, dismayed to see that his messed-up, urine-stained, filthy pants were the same. He slumped down next to the rock and called out for Yahiko. "Hello?"_

"_Hmm?" She looked down from the treetops where she had a butterfly perched on one finger._

"_Do you know what I'm doing?" Nagato shook his head, but his hair stubbornly refused to remove itself from his face. He could hardly even see. If anyone knew what to do, this clear-eyed vision did. _

_Yahiko shrugged. Male or female, she was graceful always. She put her hand out and sent a butterfly softly fluttering down. Nagato reached up for it. It stopped descending beyond a certain point and fluttered past, like a stone skipping off the surface of a lake. Nagato watched it go. He sat in the shadow of the rock, watching the sunlight. _

The sound of birds singing startled him. He never heard sounds in his dreams. Nagato's eyes flew open into darkness. The only light in his inside-facing room was the pale light of his cellphone going off, playing the sound of birds. He reached out clumsily, pressing the button that would make it quiet. It fell off the table into the trash can. He leaned over the edge of the bed to get it. "Ah!" He brought a leg forward to keep himself from falling off just in time. Nagato shook his head. It would be so much easier to just get out of bed.

After retrieving his phone from the garbage can, he sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes, yawning. _Why did I take an inside room, and not one with a window? _he wondered. He really, really hoped the answer wasn't _because I didn't want to have a room next to Konan's_. That would be a very bad reason, considering he was trying to help her. And, if he was at all shy around her, why take a room in the same hallway in the first place? It wasn't like sharing a wall represented any special boundary or anything. Nagato decided to stop thinking about this.

He started thinking about his dream instead, and chuckled. The first part of it was embarrassing and gross, but it had ended on a pleasant note. Yahiko looked really nice as a girl. The part of Nagato that was able to use logic to reason that they were never going to get together thought it would be so much easier to be friends with her. Every other part vehemently disagreed. Nagato got up to see if Yahiko was awake.

As Nagato cracked open his own door slowly, so as to not wake anyone, a shadow stirred outside his room. He froze. It was already gone. _What was that?_ He leaned out and looked up and down the dark hallway. There was nothing.

He tiptoed over to Yahiko's door, which was right next to his own, and cracked that open too. There was a very loud yawn from inside, and some rustling and mumbling. Nagato closed the door.

He glanced back down the hall where the shadows had moved. It was in the direction of Konan's room. The most likely answer was that she was up early, as usual. Nagato continued to stare, regardless. Something turned over in the far back of his mind and nudged at him insistently. Konan could be up and about, or there could be a ghost, demon, vampire, etc. wandering the halls of their base. He glanced down. That was silly. Wasn't it?

_I can't really know for sure, and I'm already up, so I might as well. What's the worst that can happen? I meet her in the halls? _Nagato looked around once, because there was no one around to see him do it, then started down toward the front of the hotel as if he was casually strolling to the kitchen for a snack. His heart was beating stronger than usual. Why was it beating so strongly?

_It was probably just Konan. _Nagato realized, to his surprise, that he did not fully believe that. _Who else could it be? _He had no idea, and that was the reason why his heart was beating fast and hard. He stopped and looked all around before turning and looking all around the cross hallway. He saw nothing in either direction, but it was dark.

Nagato crossed through the building, then looked down the hall where everyone else was. He saw nothing but closed doors, behind which lay peaceful slumberers. He opened his mouth to sigh in relief. He was crudely interrupted by the feeling of every hair on the back of his neck straining as if to tear themselves from his skin.

He took a quick, quiet breath instead and spun to the right. There was a little bit of light from the windows in the front lobby there, but still he saw nothing. Yet Nagato felt very, very sure that some kind of mysterious ninja sense had seen something. Had he caught something out of the corner of his eye, or heard a minute shuffle? He might have. _I'm probably making up new things. I don't have any memory of seeing anything. There's nothing to be looking for. _When this predictably failed to calm his racing heart, Nagato channeled some chakra down to his hands and readied himself. It was vastly more effective.

A full minute and a half later, the edge of Nagato's hair peered around the corner into the front lobby, followed by one cheek, then one eye. This one eye scanned the entire room as far as it was able, side to side and up to down. The sight of, who could've guessed, nothing, made his heart leap into his throat. Nagato really, really hoped he wasn't a nervous sort who could get bent out of shape over a shadow. He didn't want to think that of himself, and so there must have been something. It could be a completely innocent something, like someone up early or a draft blowing things through the air, but there was no way he could be mistaking nothing for something. If it wasn't here, that begged the question: where was it? Behind him?

No, it was not behind him. Nagato looked around again in the lobby, then ventured in for a thorough investigation. There could've been a slight draft - some papers had fallen off the disused desk - but nothing else. The entire landscape was cast in blue by the time he finished, and soon it would be light enough outside to reveal the forest's true colors. He sat on the chair behind the desk and sighed. He still hadn't found anything, but the light alone calmed his racing heart. His cheeks burned as he edged closer to admitting that maybe, just maybe, he'd been afraid of nothing after all.

He got up, stretched, and yawned. He should get back to bed before dawn fully arrived and anybody asked embarrassing questions. In the vain hope that he could find some legitimate reason why he'd been sneaking around like a scared mouse, Nagato went down the right hallway where everyone else slept first, retracing his own footsteps. He blushed harder. _Forget it. I'm too worked up after fighting and seeing Yahiko wrestle a demon, that's all. _

A creaking window brought him to a standstill. He stopped breathing, stopped making any sound that could get in the way of his own ears. Nagato heard it again: something squeaking. Eyes confirmed it was not a door. He rose to the tips of his toes and snuck closer, tracing the small sound to Hidan's door.

Now he sighed in relief. _Oh, it was just Hidan being up early! Enjoying the morning dew, maybe? _Nagato knocked on the door very softly with one knuckle, then slowly twisted the knob and entered after receiving no response.

The window latch hit the wood below with a soft thud as Hidan let it fall. He faced out the window, away from Nagato. Nagato knocked on the open door with one knuckle again. "Hey." There was no pause in Hidan's movements. The growing light outlined his shape clearly as he unzipped his cloak smoothly, took the scythe off his back smoothly, swung the scythe around where it was in danger of slicing through the ceiling smoothly, and removed his right arm from the sleeve of his cloak smoothly. It was mechanical, not like Hidan at all, and he didn't seem to have heard Nagato either time. Nagato swallowed.

"Hidan?" he whispered. "Uh, are you, really, um…" He still wasn't being heard. Hidan switched the scythe to his right hand and nearly broke the window with it as he freed his left arm. He took the cloak and, raising his left arm in front of himself, let it fall. Nagato found this to be the strangest, most troubling thing of all. Hidan had raced out to get that cloak, and showed it off every chance he wore it. Letting it fall to the floor was unexplainable. "Okay, you're acting a little stran- " That was when Hidan turned around.

Nagato's breath rushed out of him in a silent whisper of air. Hidan's eyes were dark. Too dark. Their pinkness should be visible in this light. The redness of the dark smudge above Hidan's mouth was. For the first time, it occurred to Nagato to wonder why Hidan would be outside Konan's room, in the front lobby, then sneaking back into his own room through the window. Hidan slowed to a stop as smoothly as a car rolling up to a stop sign, swiped a hand across his face to his mouth in one motion, licked, and lowered his hand. The smudge was gone. And somehow, causing Nagato's jaw to drop in disbelief although he was watching it right in front of him, Hidan's eyes brightened. Pink rose where there hadn't been pink before.

Nagato asked something incoherent and stupid. It might have been "What just happened?", or it might have been nothing but questioning noises. Either way, Hidan mumbled back something that might have been a response. It sounded a little like, "Ne uh br." Neighbor? That didn't make any sense. It didn't sound like it was one word either, maybe two or three. Hidan curled on the carpet and went to sleep with the same smoothness before Nagato could ask.

Nagato closed the door behind him very, very, quietly, then leaned with his back against it for some time. He didn't know how long. What the hell had just happened? Was that blood? Why the hell was Hidan coming back from sneaking around in the forest with blood near his mouth? Nagato's mind was very loud, though he was outwardly very quiet. He forced himself to take breaths as he needed to do and tried not to shake. _What just happened?! _

It occurred to Nagato that he might go back to his own room, pretend nothing had ever happened, and get all the shakes out before anyone else was awake. He did that. It was very easy to stop and appear relaxed when someone knocked on his door, and he didn't feel any urge to start again. "Come in," he said with a completely steady voice. Maybe nothing _had_ ever happened.

Yahiko opened the door and sat down at the foot of Nagato's bed without needing to ask permission. "Hey," he greeted his best-ever friend. "So, dream of anything interesting?"

"Yeah," Nagato answered. It was customary to want to tell a friend about a crazy dream that one has had. To ask for a dream story from someone who one has no reason to suspect of being psychic would be...strange. Yahiko would probably tell him why he was asking in due time. Yahiko had no secrets from him. "I dreamed of asking you for advice, and you being reassuring but not really giving me any."

Yahiko's jaw worked up and down several times. Why would he be surprised to hear that? "I dreamed of that too," he answered. It was Nagato's turn to be surprised. _He - me? What would he ever need advice about? He has so much figured out that I don't. _

"So…" Yahiko looked to the side shyly. Nagato leaned forward to finally hear the reason why he was being asked about dreams. "So, um…" Confusion passed over Yahiko's face. It was the look of figuring out how to phrase something. Nagato waited patiently.

"How did you dream of me?" Yahiko finally asked. He looked up to Nagato's eye like he was frightened. _Why? I don't even know what he's asking…_

Nagato struggled to remember anything that could conceivably be relevant. "Um, we were in the forest, and it was sunny. You were sitting somewhere, all calmly. Then you were happy and ran off with butterflies, or something. You were dancing, or maybe it was just like you were. I dreamed of you being happy and peaceful, that's all."

"Oh. Okay. Nothing else? Um...weird? Unusual?"

"No." _What is he asking me about? Why? Is something going on? _

Yahiko shuffled. "Okay, then," he giggled. "I was just wondering…"

"About what?"

Yahiko shrugged, poorly. "Something I saw in my dream, that's all. You were, like, _there_, and I was strange, and it was really weird that you didn't seem like you even noticed. It was one of those weird dream things, I don't even know why I'm asking about it. Nevermind."

Nagato tilted his head. He was completely confused. Hidan was acting freaky, and Yahiko was asking him strange things. Why? Was something happening? Were they okay? He raised a hand and felt for Yahiko's temperature.

Yahiko blinked, then laughed. It was a natural laugh. He pushed Nagato's hand away. "I'm not sick! I wouldn't come here if I was. Besides, you're not my mom." He giggled again. Nagato smiled. Everything was alright.

"Do you think it's weird?" Yahiko asked. He shuffled around so he could sit cross-legged, and leaned forward. "Big battle, big party, _fighting._ And now it's all just another work day. How am I ever going to stock racks like nothing happened?"

Nagato started to laugh uncontrollably. If he could tell anyone, he could tell Yahiko. It was _hilarious_ now! "I woke up really early, when you were still asleep, and saw a shadow move. You should have seen me, sneaking around like a mouse about to have a heart attack! I thought it could be another demon," he explained. He wiped his eyes for spare tears and let out another few giggles. "It was just Hidan." That brought his laughter to a stop fast.

Yahiko shivered. "To be fair, he and Konan can be kind of scary when they're trying to be quiet, and I've been looking around for ghosts ever since they met that demon boy. No judgment here."

"Ghosts?"

"I don't like the idea of being spied on." _Huh. He doesn't? _Nagato had never known that before. He almost wanted to ask why, but didn't. It could be something private.

Yahiko looked around with a frown. "Speaking of, did you see how tired she was yesterday after being paper all the time? I think she's still asleep. She must be _really _tired."

Nagato nodded. "I would be too, after racing around for most of the past week. If I'd been doing that _and _I hadn't passed out at just the right time, I'd have fallen down midstep somewhere. She did pass out at just the right time, but I still have no idea how she managed."

"You think she'd mind if I made her breakfast?" Yahiko asked.

"No, that'd be great! Hidan went back to sleep after all that, but he'll probably be awake by then. You could leave it with him."

Yahiko unfolded his legs and hopped off the bed. "I'll go do that, then. See you round."

Nagato swung himself off the bed to follow. He wasn't sure how he felt about Hidan being awake by then. _Man up. I'll have to ask him just what the hell he was doing sometime, so I should get it over with. _He still nervously chewed the inside of his cheeks. On his way past Konan's door, he couldn't help but glance sideways. That was a mystery still unsolved. _And what was he doing outside Konan's door?_

**Deidara**

Nobody wanted to wake Deidara from his deep slumber, so he was left out of the mutual commiserating that everyone else participated in while Yahiko cooked breakfast.

"Anyone else feel weird about going back to a normal day after yesterday?" Yahiko asked after the third person came in to ask what he was cooking, why, and could they have some. Thus started a chain of agreement, where everyone affirmed that yes, the ordinary working day seemed somehow different. Kisame grumbled something about his job feeling less interesting than it ever had before. Samehada chirred agreement, though that was probably because he wouldn't have any more cool stories to listen to. Itachi admitted that the thought of being free and out in the open, formerly a good thing, now sent shivers up his spine.

Sasori opened his mouth to chime in, and came to a life-altering realization. The floor seemed to broaden somehow. His mouth still open, he looked around at everyone else as if at a great distance. Yahiko, with a worried voice, asked why. Sasori worked his jaw around, trying to force the truth out past disbelief, shock and not a small amount of denial.

"Fighting the succubus yesterday made my job better. It made everything better," he whispered.

Sasori sat back, trying to ponder how that could possibly be true and getting nowhere. Somehow, it just was. Everybody else that had fit themselves into the kitchen looked just as surprised as he did. Nobody knew what to say to that.

Then Hidan poked his head in. "Hey, assholes! How yall doing? Anything cool? What is that and why does it smell so good?"

Something unsettling happened in the kitchen at that time. Nothing afterwards could be quite the same as before, whether anyone there recognized it or not. Deidara and Konan missed it, and Kakuzu was already quite familiar with it so he was just gratified to see that everyone else felt the same. As for everyone else, their previously established image of Hidan took a strong blow when they realized that really, truly, Hidan's experiences the previous day had _genuinely_ not changed _a single thing_ about how he felt, or thought, or acted _at all._

"You must feel at least a little nervous. Imagine going into the bar again. I recall some mention of a hive. You could be hurt again, at any time, with nobody to rescue you," Itachi envisioned.

"Your soul popped free of your body and _touched_," Sasori added.

"You can turn into a girl now!" Yahiko contributed. "Isn't that special? Different?"

Hidan smacked himself on the forehead for forgetting to wear his cloak. Without a shirt, he couldn't transform in front of people. However, to answer their other questions, turning into a girl was _awesome_ but not really different from any other fun thing, having his soul touched was a complete nonissue, and it would be really really fun if he went to the bar and met a lot of demons. "Fuck, I have _so many questions now_," he whispered, with his eyes shining in awe. "How do they feel about, like..._everything?_ They must have so much to work through."

He proceeded to bounce up and down, and would have ran to grab his cloak and go down to the bar right that second. But just before he would have done so, it sunk in for Yahiko that he was really going to do that, because he really had no more fear or caution than he'd ever had, and Yahiko remembered to ask him to stay so Konan could have breakfast when she woke up. Hidan agreed readily, and looked forward to talking about cool things with Konan. Samehada licked at his arm uncertainly. Hidan _tasted_ normal…

Kakuzu made a big show of shrugging and shaking his head as if to say, _What can you do?_ From this, everyone else in the room understood Hidan was always like this. How? What? Why? Hidan was confused by their confusion and clarified that it wasn't a big deal, it was someone being unhappy and angry, why was everyone so worried? By the time they broke up and left for their various duties, only one thing had been made clear: Hidan wasn't normal.

Nagato was the last to go off, staying behind to ask Hidan just what the hell had happened this morning and where the blood had come from. Hidan looked very confused and mentioned some problems Kakuzu had said he had with sleepwalking, before wandering away to see if Konan was awake. He left the redhead with his jaw hanging open. What the hell kind of sleepwalking put blood on someone's face?!

At the time he was wondering this, Deidara's eyes were starting to squeeze in his room. Dei moved his fingers on his right hand as Kisame told Samehada to hang out at home (again) today. He yawned while Samehada groused in a corner, starting to get bored with hanging around other people all day while his favorite person played with his former tankmates. Hidan listened closely, determined that Konan was not even close to being awake, and put her breakfast in an enclosed container. Deidara groaned as the final side of the lid snapped shut. _Finally_, the place was all quiet. He continued to lay sprawled out over his bed, not moving, not even thinking. He drifted in the pure sensation of rest.

Eventually, it began to drift away from him. He tried to hold onto it, but trying to do anything only made it go faster. Deidara opened his eyes reluctantly. "Urrrrgh." He rolled over and stared at the ceiling. Only then did he realize how quiet it was.

"Hm?" He got out of bed too quickly and stumbled to the left of the door. He worked his way right, tried to recover his balance, and successfully left his room. Hidan was outside, looking for him. Konan's door was closed.

Dei opened his mouth to ask Hidan where everyone was, but he was grabbed, shushed, and dragged to the kitchen before he could. "She's still sleeping. _Super _tired from yesterday," Hidan explained. "How ya doing, blondie?"

"Me too," Deidara yawned. "Where is everyone?"

"Already left," Hidan said with a shrug. "But I was there for some of what they were talking about before, if you want to hear it."

Dei blinked away mild surprise. When was the last time he'd overslept this much? But after how tired he'd been yesterday, he couldn't claim real surprise. He nodded. "Yeah, shoot."

"Yahiko cooked breakfast." Hidan indicated the container on the counter he was leaning against. "For Konan, so we shouldn't have any. It smelled delicious, too. How the fuckits is that guy still single?"

Deidara was startled by an unpleasant thought. "What if it's because his original was, yeah?"

Hidan scratched his head. "She said we kinda have their personalities, so we could kinda have their relationships too. Makes sense."

The thought that such an amount of his life had been decided by someone else was still sending shivers up Deidara's spine. How could Hidan be so cool about something like that? Dei tried to remember everything that had led to him and Sasori being friends. It was all natural...right? But for Yahiko, it wasn't. He felt _extremely _bad on his orange-haired friend's behalf. "Damn, yeah."

"Yeah…" Hidan's eyes grew misty. "That is fucking _suckish_. Shit."

Deidara shook his head. "He seems pretty happy anyway, so I guess he's okay. What happened while I was sleeping, yeah?"

"So, he was cooking breakfast, everyone came in to see if they could have some, and they talked about something. I don't know what it was, because I only showed up at the end. That's when they ganged up on me to try and make me agree that the world was suddenly all scary and changed and shit just because we fought a demon yesterday!" Hidan crossed his arms and scowled. "What the shit does something like that have to do with today? They think I'll treat going to the bar any differently now? Why the fuck would I do that?"

"Um, you ended up in a lot of pain from going to the bar, yeah," Deidara pointed out the obvious.

"So? It didn't _hurt._ Who cares?"

Deidara's mind was clicking at nearly its full potential, but that was not remotely fast enough to make any sense of Hidan's words. _Pain is hurting. That's the definition of it. What? _He repeated this out loud, hoping for an explanation that made sense.

"No it's not." Hidan stood up straight and held up two hands. To his left hand, he said, "This is hurting. It's when something is broken and you can't do things as well as before." To his right hand, Hidan said, "This is pain. It's a reaction to hurting, or sometimes joy, or great things like running. A little of it feels fantastic, a lot can _cause_ hurting by keeping you from moving or anything." He put his hands down. "Shit yes, that was painful, but I am exactly as capable of anything as I was before. Even when I had a whole elephant of a hangover, it didn't really hurt. It did start to, but I knocked myself out so I was fine. Get it?"

It made half-sense to Deidara. That meant he could almost make sense of it, but then the tenuous train of logic he was trying to build fall apart before it got there. Dei could not tell if Hidan's words were very wise or very bizarre. He held onto one part that was definitely bizarre. "How do you knock yourself out when you have a hangover, hm?"

"Thinking hurt, so I thought about things a lot until it hurt enough to knock me out," Hidan chirped. "If you ask how I thought of _that_, the answer is that I can think without really _thinking,_ going through the back channels if you will. It was only, like, thinking with the conscious part of my brain that hurt."

"You're making _my_ head hurt," Deidara complained. "Can't you just say intuition or something, hm?"

"There's a word for it?" Hidan exclaimed. "I'll go look it up. Thanks!"

He paused, looking somewhere above Deidara's head and tilting his own head quizzically. "She's awake," he murmured. "Uf. Feels like such a letdown. Of...everything."

True enough, Deidara could see his eyes dim and eyelids start to droop as Hidan talked. Yikes. What kind of thing could he be picking up from her? "So, um…" Deidara started.

"You stay here, bring her food in fifteen minutes or something. I'm gonna be outside," Hidan muttered as he pushed himself off of the counter. He swayed a little, and looked pale like he might be ill.

_Ill? Hey-!_ Deidara tapped Hidan on the shoulder before he could leave. "Hey, I just remembered! Do you actually remember anything of that big talk we had at the party? You left and said it didn't feel like you would remember, yeah."

Hidan stared back and shook his head. Deidara was disappointed. Then Hidan opened his mouth and said, "Jesus. Other world. Big shit. Ugh, I felt like shit. How did I manage to remember? Who fucking knows." He shook his head again before leaving. Deidara was joyed at this pleasant surprise.

Dei pulled out his phone, figured out how to work the timer app, and set it for ten minutes. He wondered what he could do for ten minutes. Read? _Not enough time. _Sit around? _Boring. _Do pushups or something? _Hey...we have training rooms. _Deidara's eyes lit up like he had a lightbulb behind them. In all the chaos, nobody had gone to see or use those rooms since that first day! Deidara rushed down to see what Hidan and Konan had done with the place. Hadn't they said something about it?

Ten seconds later, Deidara's alarm went off to tell him that somehow, minutes had passed. It didn't feel like it. Deidara still stared in slackjawed fascination at the right training room. _Holy crap, how did they do all this? And why? It looks like they let a bored toddler loose in here and put targets in after he was done, yeah. But it works…!_

Deidara shook his head. How many more minutes had just passed? He should get Konan her breakfast already. He turned his back to the room, and put his hands at the sides of his eyes like horse blinders so he wouldn't be tempted to turn back and stay there for the entire day. He _would_ lock himself in there if that was what he had to do, but maybe not today. Things to do, people to feed. Bored toddlers to visit.

He hoped Konan was okay.

.

**A/N: In case it wasn't clear, Yahiko's sister and his female form in Nagato's dream look exactly the same. I hoped her long hair and graceful movements would make a connection in readers' minds, but such hopes have not worked out in the past. **

**The party scene was fun, but it's time now for a nice, relaxing chapter where people don't do a lot of things. Except reenact a horror movie, apparently. Whoops. **

**Next chapter's going to start with Konan. What _did _Hidan do outside her door? Does Konan speak mumble, and what did Hidan actually say? I don't know if that second one is going to be next chapter, but it's coming up. I gotcha. **


	34. New Order

**A/N: Sorry, looks like "What did Hidan say?" is a question for a future chapter. Who's looking forward to the Spring Forward? Not me! And probably not anyone else, either. It's an abomination. I should mention it somewhere next chapter. **

**.**

**Konan**

It felt like she was made of water. Everything in her body felt like it was filled with water, soft and heavy and gentle. The feeling of rocks tied to her limbs from the night before was a distant memory. Unlike that feeling, where she had almost been able to feel the rocks' lines pressing into the muscles of her legs, this water feeling could have fooled her into thinking she had no chakra system at all. There was no burning or sparking. No crushing emptiness, little vacuums running through her muscles. There wasn't even any freezing coldness. This feeling of being filled with water was very pleasant, almost like she could move easily if she chose to. It occurred to Konan that she probably couldn't, but she felt she could and that feeling was pleasant.

It occurred to her that the air was liquid, and so was water. Konan felt herself merging, liquid to liquid, and floating up to where beams of warmth shone directly above her. They were beams of light. The light warmed her very nicely. _Best. _The water inside her limbs felt even softer, rounder and happier. _Cat._ Konan saw a kitty with the softest, wispiest fur lying on the bed before her eyes, with its limbs curled beneath its body so they were invisible as it purred. It was white. This was a dream image; her eyes were still closed.

The cat yawned and spit out a cinder, which landed on Konan and went through her skin, into her leg. The cinder floated through her body as if it had someplace to be. It went down her leg, up her leg, swirled through her belly, down her arm, up her arm, swirled in her chest, swirled in her head, partially swirled in her chest, went down her other arm, up her other arm, swirled in her belly, down her other leg, up her other leg, swirled in her belly again. The circle repeated three more times before Konan grew tired of following it and asked the cinder to leave. It did not leave. Something felt strange in Konan's back, and that was when she realized she was full of cinders.

Konan opened her eyes. The rest of her body still felt heavy in a pleasant way, thank the gods. Even the cinderlike feeling of her recharging chakra system didn't hurt. Now, if only she could muster the motivation to move, her day would begin.

She didn't muster the motivation to move. Konan knew she should. Her training harassed her; shinobi could feel like staying in bed, as any normal person could, but it was never, never to be acted on. Staying in bed and not getting up felt morally wrong, an alien and vaguely sinister act she was committing. Konan twisted her head to look around, which eased the guilt somewhat. She saw something unexpected on her floor near the door.

Konan dug deep for curiosity, wariness, or anything else that could help her get out of bed. She found the dream image of the adorable white kitty purring on her legs. That worked. She walked stiffly over to the door, sitting down out of its swing radius before reaching out and picking the unexpected sheaf of paper from the floor. Konan's eyes widened, and the cinder multiplied, strengthening her chakra flow. There was now a symbol of Jashin on the formerly blank sheets of paper. She flipped through the pages, seeing instructions for a ritual. It would require a decent quantity of blood, but the instructions specified that any blood was acceptable. Sap could be used for some parts, if enough red blood was not available. The central symbol required red blood, preferably shed in the middle of ecstasy or after hard exercise, but the surrounding symbols had no qualifications. Konan skipped to the end result and instantly realized why the demon boy had given this to her. _That boy is a genius. I owe him. _Konan felt remarkably refreshed after reading this.

The door swung open. "Woah," Deidara took a step back. "Um...breakfast, yeah!" He held a box of multicolored stuff, the transparent lid coated with moisture on the inside. He also held a spoon.

"Thank you." Konan accepted her breakfast. She wondered where it had come from.

"Yeah…" Deidara sighed sadly. He pushed the door fully back and sat across from her with his legs crossed. He stared wistfully at her box, looking away for politeness' sake, then looking back again. "How is it?" he asked after she finished the first spoonful. "I overslept and didn't get to have any, hm. Well, no one else did either, but I didn't even get to smell it!"

"It's delicious," Konan marveled. "Where did it come from?"

"Yahiko made it. Maybe I should run out of chakra, hm." Deidara looked enviously at her.

Konan stopped chewing and paused to consider this. _Of course. Presumably, without any version of me, he and Nagato have learned to cook for themselves in this world. _She swallowed and resumed eating. They weren't incapable before, but there was a difference between finding food in the wild to live on and making a real meal. It was strange to think of the two primary men in her life learning to cook like a woman. Of course Yahiko would, but Nagato? She couldn't imagine him doing any such thing. Perhaps Yahiko cooked for the both of them.

Deidara waited until half her box was empty before making a small motion with his hand at the papers. "What's that?"

Konan turned it frontside up, so that the symbol was plainly obvious. Deidara looked at it, his eyes drawn to the symbol like a beacon.

"Creepy, but I like the color," he decided. The symbol was a harmless variant of blue. "Why is it creepy? I've never been creeped out by a logo before, hm."

Konan remembered that this version of Hidan did not talk about religion, so Dei would have no idea what it was. "This is the symbol of Jashin," she explained after swallowing. "That's the god Original Hidan worshiped. These pages contain instructions for installing a symbol of Jashin as a permanent fixture."

Deidara opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it. "Uh...so is that why it's creepy, yeah?"

"Yes."

"Where do you get instructions like that, hm?"

Konan put down her empty box. "These are the papers the demon boy left for me when Yahiko and I ventured out to the hospital, remember?"

"Oh!" Deidara faked understanding quite well, though she had not at all answered his question.

Before he could ask it again, Konan stood. "Thank you for the food. I have something to ask." When Deidara was standing before her looking attentive, she fixed his eyes with a sharp stare. "I do not know how relations between men and women are in this world. You are not to speak under any circumstances."

Dei gulped. "Of course! Totally, yeah. I wouldn't be believed anyway." Konan did not wear her cloak to bed, so she was currently dressed only in a blouse with straps instead of sleeves, and shorts that went about midway down her thigh. It was an exceedingly normal outfit by Dei's standards, and completely unrevealing. It was special only because she usually wore the cloak everywhere. That was of course why she asked him to keep mum, as anything less than the full cloak felt like nakedness.

"Very well." These were her original clothes that she had died with, so Konan was well aware that they were exceedingly normal, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. Who knew what kind of perverts her coworkers were in their private lives, anyhow. She reached for her cloak.

Dei thought of awkwardly saying something that he thought would be a nice compliment but instead would only make the situation more awkward, like they did in the movies, but thought against it. He left the room decorously, without any lingering awkwardness. God, movies were turning out to be _so inaccurate._

**Sasori**

Sasori stood still in his workplace. What was he looking for? What was there to look for? His stomach rolled uneasily, and he didn't know anymore.

His boss was not happy, but he had no power to pull Sasori's soul anywhere, so he didn't matter. Sasori let the words roll over him as a breeze rolls around a dragon, and freed his mind for further explorations. His feet seemed not to be touching the ground. Sasori had the curious feeling that he was not really in the shop, but somewhere else.

Sasori thought it was possible the shop might not exist anymore. Not as it had before. His roaming eyes looked over his familiar space, and Sasori was terrified to notice that he was just on the edge of being able to see the colors hidden beneath them. Or maybe it was his own perception having changed; this was just the form it took. Sasori wondered if he was losing it.

Everything was _small_. The air smelled of oil and metal, tinged with sweat both effortful and angry. What the hell was he doing here? Sasori looked away from the angry man making loud noises, over to various large machines that sat silent and looming in the corner. He couldn't answer that anymore. Was Deidara right? Was there more, waiting for Sasori to find it? Sasori tried to tell himself he still needed to get back to alright, and when he did everything would seem normal again. But his workbench looked ugly.

Sasori turned back to his angry boss, who stood silent and fuming. He'd never given in to the manager's displeased ranting, but he'd never turned his head away as if it didn't matter either. Sasori remembered this later, after he accomplished the first goal. Goal Number One: _get him the hell out of this place so I can be alone._

"With all due respect, sir," Sasori said in a voice filled with emotion, "go away." His voice sounded disturbed even to his own ears. It was faint, unsure, and trembled as if it might just disappear, walking out that door to never come back. It was the voice of _You have disappeared, and other things have taken your place of importance. _It carried a warning of, _I realize my power. _The manager turned interesting colors, before sulking off. Sasori turned back to the machines and was staring at them long before his boss left. Things were rearranging themselves, in reality and in the mind.

Sasori perceived this rearranging, but did not see how it was happening, or why. He did not think of himself at all. Rather, the world around him seemed to be upset, falling to pieces and coming together again somehow everywhere he looked. The machines - _inadequate._ Sasori had a fleeting vision of something else, too quickly to put it down on paper. He thought he might get it back, though. _Was that it? Did I just see what I want to do, back home in that shed? _He was suddenly overcome with the urge to go back; just leave this place that was not right, and start, _**now! **_Sasori gasped, and went over to the window. The urge echoed around inside, flinging Sasori back and forth like a small bird in a hurricane. He felt like he was spinning, spinning, and might never land. He looked out of the window for something solid and real.

There was a bicycle in the parking lot outside. Sasori shook his head, his mouth hanging open. _What? What? _He turned back, crossed the room to sit down somewhere, and pressed his hands against the side of his head. _Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Everything's insane, but I don't have to be. _Sasori did not believe this. Was everything insane, or was he? _I saw things with my soul! Someone call Kakuzu, ask him to bet on both. _That was a great idea. Someone else who had been there was exactly who he needed to be talking to right now.

Laurie had her personal laptop open on her desk, and was absently scrolling through it. Sasori couldn't even see what she was scrolling past before it was gone. She looked up at him and asked straight out, "Do you think there's something else?"

Sasori stared back. There were many, many things she could be referring to. He realized the odds were very good that the answer was Yes no matter what she was referring to, and nodded.

She turned back to her small computer and propped her head up with one elbow on the desk, staring forlornly like the device was a portal to another world. "It's just like, what am I doing sitting here? I… There has to be something else to do. I keep wanting to just get up and go somewhere, but I have no idea where. I can't even focus. It's like nothing's real anymore. Yesterday was real. Today…"

Sasori leaned against the wall behind her. "I had my soul pulled partly out of my body and _touched_, yet I realized this morning that I now have increased understanding of many things and my boss has shrunk to a tiny, annoying mosquito. It's _better_ now. How the fuck can that be true?"

Laurie shook her head. "He _is _really meaningless, right? I thought I was hallucinating that."

"I'm hallucinating that my space is too small, unless you've seen that too." Sasori leaned back and looked at the ceiling. Two fluorescent tubes created twin circles of light that barely reached to the walls. The corners looked dingy, and Sasori thought they would feel dingy too.

"Not hallucinating that." Laurie sat up and leaned back in her chair, spinning around to face Sasori. "What are we doing here?"

"I keep shaking with this weird urge to just race home and start in my own space," Sasori admitted. "I mean, the hotel. When did I start thinking of that as home?"

Laurie shrugged. He continued. "Anyway, I looked at the machines and saw something, maybe what I want to build. I keep having to resist the urge to just take my tools and the bike and get the hell away from here."

"How much carrying capacity does the bike have?" Laurie asked.

"Um…" Sasori tried to remember. "It was just a normal racing bike. I think those come with something attached to their frames to hold a water bottle."

"What?" Laurie asked. "I thought...what about _your _bike?"

"_My _bike?" Sasori remembered that he rode a motorcycle. "Oh, yeah. I'd have to come back for one of them on foot, then. I've run to the base from here before; it wasn't that difficult."

"Where is this racing bike?" Laurie looked confused.

"You remember the little one I fixed?" Sasori reminded her. "Yeah, there's another one sitting out in the lot now. I haven't gone out to see what's wrong with it yet."

"Oh…" Recognition dawned in Laurie's eyes. "Like that other one! You fixed the little bike that day the boss was out, and then there was another one. What happened to that other one?"

"Which other one? The one that was conspiring with my bike?"

"Yeah, that one."

"How am I supposed to know?" Sasori shrugged. "Not broken, not my problem. It was gone anyway by the time I left. The one with the broken chain was easy to fix outside."

"Right." Laurie counted on her fingers. "So there was a kid's bike, then those two we saw that day your laptop got stolen, and now another one. That's four bikes showing up under mysterious circumstances. What the hell?"

"Do you get an eerie feeling from this?" Sasori asked. "Everything we're talking about now feels like a return to normality, to reality. I think my definition of normal's gone backwards."

Laurie paused. "Oh my god, you're right." She glanced at him. "Do you think this is a sign?"

"A sign?" Sasori did not ask this as a request for further explanation. He tilted his head at her, making Laurie blush. What kind of person didn't have at least some superstitions? Her new best friend, that was who.

She tried to explain herself. "Yeah, um… You know, gut instinct, if you want to call it that. What if what feels right _is_ right, and what feels wrong _is_ wrong? Would you rather fix bicycles than be here?"

Sasori's eyes grew distant. He seriously considered the possibility. "I do know one thing," he said slowly. "Once is weird. Twice is creepy. A third time is proof someone's sending me a message."

"Oh, so you do believe in at least one normal superstition." Laurie was relieved.

Sasori looked offended to have been so accused. "No, I don't. Why would you say that? Three times shows someone's making an effort. There's a purpose to all these bikes showing up here. I just need to figure out what it means."

Laurie drummed her fingers on the desk. "So, do you want to fix it?"

"Yes. It's a reflex; I can't help it." Sasori turned back to get his tools. "Back out to the real world. I can't believe I just said that." He shook his head as he left.

Laurie nodded behind him. Left alone again, she closed her useless device and sighed. She bit her lip and looked around. What was she going to occupy her time with now?

Deidara. The idea burst into her mind. Spending her time up here chatting with people was exactly what the boss had disapproved of strongly enough to keep the incubus away, of course, but Laurie was still riding the waves of freedom that came with feeling like her world had been shattered and reglued. She ran after Sasori to get his friend's number.

**Hidan**

"Where'd you get this?" he asked. Hidan turned the ball over in his hands and sniffed it all around. It smelled of earth and many places that were not inhabited by humans. He liked that smell. The ball was smooth, dark red, and showed the scratches of having been bounced many times over many surfaces.

There was silence. The mute boy whose ball this was stood across from him in the clearing, staring up at Hidan. His black hair framed his pale face so he looked sadder than ever. The stuffed snake was draped over a rock within arm's reach.

"What do you do with it?" Hidan asked, handing the ball back.

The boy began to bounce it on the hard packed ground. Hidan watched him do this for around five minutes until the boy stopped bouncing it and held it out for Hidan.

"That looks like fun!" Hidan agreed, and stood up to bounce it more impressively. He frowned and crouched again after the first few bounces. The ball wasn't bouncy enough to make it that high. It was only a good ball for someone around the boy's size.

He handed it back after a few minutes. The boy took the ball and held it, looking off into the forest. Hidan sniffed the air and looked around. He didn't see anything. Maybe the kid was thinking.

The kid put down the ball, picked up his snake, and started rolling the ball away. "Aw, a shame," Hidan murmured. "Hey, you can see me if you need anything!" The boy stopped rolling for just a moment to indicate he heard.

Hidan sat enjoying the sun for some time, then remembered about Konan. _How long have I been out here, anyway?_ But first, he got up and started walking in the direction the kid had been looking. It was entirely possible the kid had been looking for some far-off cool thing.

Hidan came upon a very tall tree. Looking up, he saw many birds in its upper branches. "Aw fuck yeah!" he grinned and started racing up. The birds cleared all around the branch where he sat, then resettled a few minutes later. _Pretty! _They had many different colors on them. Hidan promptly named this spot the Bird Tree in his mind as he watched the flock.

_Wrrrrbbb. _Hidan's phone made a low trilling/rumbling sound, as if it was an obscenely cute sci-fi creature. He pulled it out and answered without taking his eyes off the birds. "Yeah?"

"Dei here. Konan's been awake for a while, and she's doing something with a ritual in the basement, hm. She wants to know if you could catch some deer for her? Uh…" There were indistinct noises on the other end of the line, then Deidara came back on. "Two. She might need a third, but just in case she doesn't, she'd like two. And she says they need to be alive, yeah."

"Aw…" Hidan whined. "I'm watching the coolest birds here! How soon does she need 'em?"

"As soon as you can," Dei answered. "She expects it'd take you fifteen minutes or something like that." There was a long silence.

"Dei?"

"Where the fuck are you, and what are you doing, hm? It's been a couple hours! I thought you'd come back in as soon as she felt better, yeah," Deidara finished.

Hidan thought back. "I chased some squirrels, went back to visit my former place, avoided a bear, then I picked up some familiar signals and spent a while bouncing a ball with that mute kid, and now I'm here in the Bird Tree, looking at birds. They are _awesome birds!_ But fine, I'll just come back later, when all the best ones are gone somewhere," he finished grumbling.

"..." Deidara made thinking noises. "Konan's doing really well! She's got a thing to mess around with, and I think she's getting some chakra back, yeah." Deidara's voice dropped to a whisper. "Hey, do you know what she wears under that cloak?"

Hidan's mouth fell open, and his other hand clenched. "Hey! You better not be offering to fucking tell me, or I will come back and punch your little dickface off! What the fuck kind of asshole goes around blabbing about something like that? I will fucking tell on you."

"Um…" He could almost hear Deidara going pale. "Not - nothing like that, hm. Just wondering. Two deer, ten minutes. Bye."

Hidan stabbed the screen of his phone to disconnect the call. _What a little dick! What kind of asshole goes around disobeying orders like that? I'm definitely telling Konan. _He knew she would not take it well, and Deidara would suffer something fierce, but it was for the greater good. _I know it's supposed to be funny 'cause there's nothing to tell, just normal clothes and shit, but fucking still!_ He leaped straight off the branch and managed to somehow not break anything upon landing. _Woah, I'm an acrobat!_

Hidan put his acrobatic skills to the test over the next half hour. First, he separated two deer from their herd. Then came the hard part, where he had to chase both of them in the direction of the base and keep them from splitting up on the way there. With the help of his images, all went well, until one of them took a hard right and the other veered to the left. Hidan sent his images back, cursed, and threw his scythe in one direction while his main body went in the other direction. Both deer whirled up on their hind legs, turned back to the forest to face his images, and were successfully redirected towards the base. They were too panicked to escape the paper weaving around their legs before it was too late.

Konan floated both deer off the ground so they wouldn't kick anybody in their frantic struggling. Hidan dismissed his images and stood, panting, as she approached. Konan stopped a foot from him, looking him in the face. Her own face said nothing. For a minute, there were just the two of them, looking at each other. Hidan started to purr. Konan's lips and eyes twitched. She reached out for him.

They embraced. Hidan, shocked but very pleased that she was initiating it, slowly raised his arms to embrace her back. His deep rumble vibrated through both their chests. Konan ran a couple of fingers through his hair. "Thank you," she whispered. "For being different from my Hidan. For being more." She buried her face in the side of his. "I tell no one."

The words _different _and _more_ sent shockwaves through Hidan's body. He didn't know what she was really referring to, but the way it made him feel left Hidan embracing her back, not saying a thing. He almost definitely didn't want to know what she was referring to. His chest hurt. _Huh? Why? _He stifled a sob. Why was he crying? Was it good or bad crying? Hidan thought it was good, although he was getting signals clear as a thundercloud. What had she said? _Oh shit, I _really _can't remember what she said. _Hidan could no longer recall any of her specific words.

He wiped his eyes with a sleeve when she drew back. Konan was smiling when he looked up at her. Hidan was completely confused, unable to tell what kind of smiling it was. She stroked his hair, her hand running gently down the side of his head and over his ear. "It's alright," she told him. "Thank you for your help." Then she was turning away, bringing the panicked deer inside to meet their fates, leaving Hidan where he was to watch her. He sniffled. _What the fuck? _

Deidara, who'd been watching from the back porch, came up to him. "Are you all right, yeah?"

Hidan stared. Where the fuck had he come from? Hidan rubbed his eyes one last time. "None your business," he growled back, and turned away.

Deidara scratched his head sheepishly. "Sorry about earlier," he muttered. "I just thought things were different with you and her, yeah."

"They are," Hidan shot back, "which is how I know that you don't get to say shit." He crossed his arms.

Deidara looked around for a way to make amends. Hidan could almost hear a _Ding! _sound when inspiration struck. "Hey," Dei said excitedly, "how about we look in the training rooms? Konan's doing her own thing, so we should do something. You can tell me what you did, yeah!"

Hidan agreed to this course of action. He retrieved his scythe, then they went to the training room to the right of the stairs. Hidan pointed to various spots around the room, giving Deidara a guided tour. "So the remote control cars will have targets put on them to practice with randomly moving shit, the trains are for less randomly moving shit, that's what the targets will look like over there, they're covered in ribbon so you can see when you miss, we weren't able to get any firecrackers to attach to the ribbon so…"

Deidara waited until he was finished to ask, "What'll we use these targets _for_, hm?"

Hidan shrugged. "It's for practicing with your own shit."

"Our own?"

"Yeah. What, you thought she was going to let everyone go without weapons? Fuck no. Anyone who stays gets their own pouch from now on." Hidan nodded as if to say, _And that's that. _

Dei's phone rang.

.

**A/N: I've referenced this before. In chapter two or three, probably chapter two, Konan walked into town for the first time and there was a whole rambling list of things that she learned about. The end Author's Note for that chapter asked how many subplots I could make out of that list. I regret to inform anyone who might be curious that the answer was 1 then, and it is 1 now. Nothing has struck a chord with me aside from "mass production of bicycles." At least it's a high-quality chord. I have no idea when it's going to be revealed what's going on with the bicycles, but never fear, I do have plans. **


	35. Spring

**A/N: Sorry for the hours of delay. Motivation has been spectacularly low the past couple weeks. Hope it doesn't show. **

**I was hoping for this to be a fluff chapter like I was trying for a couple chapters ago, but this one also failed to be nice and fluffy. I'll get a chapter in somewhere without any characters having good reason to panic, I promise. You'll have to settle for mostly fluffy for now. **

**.**

**Yahiko**

It was time for lunch. Yahiko ate his standing. If he tried to sit down, his hands shook and his thoughts raced too much to eat. If he stood, it was easier to focus, although he then had to face the fact that he just wasn't hungry. His stomach was tense too.

His boss walked up to him. "Are you alright?" she asked. It was a nice, noncommittal line of questioning. He could easily fulfill his social obligation with, "Fine," and she'd be on her way. She was very considerate that way.

Yahiko didn't give answers that way, of course. "No," he admitted. "It's hard to talk about, but, um, I just have this one friend who's so much braver than I'll ever be, and I don't think he even notices. No one else does, either. I don't get it…"

The department manager gave him a few seconds before smiling at him. "You'll figure it out," she consoled, and walked away. Yahiko was left confused. _Figure what out? There's so many things I don't get…_

His lunch time was almost over and he was maybe a tenth of the way through his food when the doorbell chimed. The staff that had different lunch times allotted were prepared and alert, but this was no customer. It was Nagato. Yahiko raced to the front and pulled him aside.

"Hey! Are you on break too? You're not going to be late getting back, are you?" Yahiko turned from happy to worried as that last occurred to him.

"No, no," Nagato waved him off. "Don't even think about me. I just wanted to apologize."

Yahiko leaned against the wall behind the sales counter, inviting Nagato to do the same. "For what?"

Nagato looked down as if trying to hide the smile on his face. "Remember, apologies aren't the same thing as asking for forgiveness. It doesn't matter what you think about me; I have to apologize for myself." He looked up at Yahiko with a sincere look in his eyes. "I'm sorry for not telling you about the succubus."

Yahiko smiled. "Hopefully we don't have to deal with a demon again."

Nagato nodded. "Yeah. But, no, that's not really what I'm talking about." He shook his head to clear his mind. "I thought not telling you about her would keep you safe, and that was worth it. But I didn't think about if you would want to know, or how you would feel. I shouldn't go around making decisions for you like that. I'm sorry."

Yahiko rubbed several strands of hair between his fingertips. "You couldn't have known. And anyway, I don't know what I would have done if I'd known all about her. I probably would have frozen. I should take action more, I'm sorry."

Nagato blinked. "No, I...no." He took Yahiko's hand. "Shut up. You're amazing. You don't need to apologize."

Yahiko giggled. "Not about you, remember?"

Nagato dropped his hand and looked sheepish. "Right. Sorry. Well, you know Hidan and Konan. They take lots of action. You can learn from them."

Yahiko nodded eagerly. "I really want to be more like Hidan," he admitted. "He's braver than me. He doesn't worry about anything."

Nagato had no idea how to feel about that. Instead of respond, he said, "And I'll try not to think I know what's for your own good. Deal?"

"Deal."

Nagato left in good spirits, promising himself that he would do more to trust Yahiko. Yahiko went back to work, promising himself that he would talk to Hidan and ask him just how he _did_ it. _What if he doesn't have a secret? What if he's just different from me? _Yahiko very carefully avoided contemplating either of those options. If either one was true, he didn't know what he would do.

**Kakuzu**

A breeze picked up Kakuzu's napkin. It started shyly, fooling with the very end of one small corner. It edged in like a frightened stray dog, jumping in a little closer, a little closer, until it charged forward and raced away with the whole napkin in its grasp, too fast for Kakuzu to stop. He had no intention of stopping it. He was already done with the small cup of coffee he ordered for decorum's sake; he had nothing to wipe up.

"So…" the man across from him began. This man was the stupid kind. His hair was messy, and his fingers twitched towards anything they wanted. So did his eyes, as if both fingers and eyes were beyond this man's control. His eyes twitched now, dancing down the page he was clutching in his soft hands. "Options narrowing, are they?" He sounded far too excited. _Moron. _Kakuzu rolled his eyes.

"Yep," Kakuzu agreed. The rule against excitement applied to himself as well as anyone else. If he ever sounded as if something like this mattered to him, he deserved whatever the consequences would be. "That's what happens when you get good at any kind of game. People stop playing with you."

His bookie frowned, looking noticeably put out by Kakuzu's not being put out. "Well, then...what you gonna do? Move to new grounds?" Kakuzu would have to find a new bookie in that case, but it was the only thing the man could think of to provide a reasonable explanation for things.

_An excitable moron, too. He'll never amount to much. _"No," Kakuzu replied. If the man he sat across from in this little outdoor deli couldn't get it through his head that there was no use running away from universal laws, that was his problem. The only people that tried were the excitable morons, who weren't looking for money as much as they were looking for some fun. Kakuzu felt sorry for those kinds of people.

"O - oh…" The bookie didn't get it. He tapped the papers against the table surface, although they were already perfectly lined up. He didn't like Kakuzu very much. Kakuzu never lined up. "Well, there are a few options left…"

Kakuzu had some fun in the moments before the bookie told him what they were, imagining what kind of local dog-racing circuit or what have you would have not heard of him already. _Corollary to the first rule: If enough people don't want to play, their friends won't play either. _He was banned from a high enough number of casinos that he'd long since lost track. Kakuzu shrugged. That was perfectly alright, because he wasn't excitable, and he didn't spend everything he got either. He could be satisfied.

The bookie told him of a local pool place where betting, although officially not allowed, happened all the time. He went on to several other things, but that one stayed in Kakuzu's mind. Kakuzu had no idea why. He was no good at pool; cards were what he'd gotten good at. Yet, the idea had some strange allure to it. Kakuzu wondered if he knew anyone who would be good at pool. Maybe he could give them some tips, operate by proxy…

Kakuzu stood up, interrupting the other man's words that he hadn't been hearing anyway. "Thank you for the tip," he said, reaching for his light jacket. Cordial and polite made for a nice ending to his interactions with his bookie. Kakuzu turned towards a place where he could think, leaving the bookie to pick up his own things.

**Kisame**

Kisame drove east and south, heading for low, open ground. There was a play area there, a wide stretch of land where families or packs of children could come and make whatever use they could of a great, huge, empty stretch of grass. When he arrived, he carefully avoided the amateur baseball team a pack of children had set up on the grass. To his right, on a corner of the field, there squatted a distant building which held two restrooms. Someone had put up a basketball hoop somewhere to the left, where the ground was rocky and lifeless enough for that sport. It had not yet been taken down. Kisame wondered if that was an approved basketball hoop as he crossed the thin grass and his shoes began to drag in thicker grass, which was shortly replaced by a mat of water weeds. The moisture-loving weeds were soft and good to sit on. Kisame noticed with mild surprise that there was freshwater algae growing on the bottom of the pond as far as he could see. _Huh. Haven't seen that before. Wonder where it came from. _

He didn't, not for more than a second. There was so much else to wonder about. Kisame found, to much greater surprise, that he wondered about none of it. His mind's concerns drained away, like a splash of bucket water running across soft ground and disappearing. He relaxed, leaning back on his hands and looking up. Secretly, that was why he had come here. This place was good at having that effect. It was something that Kisame could not explain, and therefore a surprise every time it happened. As long as it was always a good surprise, he could live with it.

A breeze drove across the ground, making lapping sounds in the water. There appeared to be no wind at all in the sky, where lumps of clouds were pinned in place. The only traces of past wind were in the faded blue of the sky, the kind of faded blue caused by wisps of clouds just barely not visible to the eye. Kisame noticed that, in a rough circular patch of sky directly above him, true sky blue shone down. It looked like something had punched a hole in a screen. He tried looking down to the trees nodding at each other, or to the pond's waters rising up and down as the wind pushed at it, but he always found his head being drawn back up to look at the hole in the sky.

Kisame finally gave up and resigned himself to sitting there for however long he was going to sit there, tracing the ragged contours of the hole with his eyes. It reminded him of a map of Australia, if there wasn't that huge curve in the continent. Kisame was idly contemplating the waters off Australia and how dangerous he'd heard they were when he heard the first rustling behind him. He didn't really know what the role of sharks was in that area of the ocean. Kisame was aware that other dangers like box jellyfish lived in those waters, but were jellyfish the only reason to be watching out? He could have looked it up on his phone, but that would be in defiance of the spirit of this place. This pond was for passing wonders, not concrete-filled answers. The rustling behind him grew closer, but quieter, so it stayed the same volume as before. Itachi was similarly considerate as he sat down, arranging himself to squish the plants as neatly as possible.

Itachi followed Kisame's gaze up to the hole in the sky. Neither of them spoke. The wind pushed the pond water another way, causing a small splash. Distant trees waved to each other, answering _Yes, yes _to the inaudible questions of their neighbors. After a long enough time sitting still in the breeze, Kisame zipped his hooded jacket a little higher.

That was enough of a cue. Itachi whispered, "I thought you might be here."

"I'm not surprised you're here. Scared?" Kisame replied.

"Yes," Itachi answered without any shame. "You?"

"I'm not sure," Kisame answered truthfully. "I like it here. Away from other people. It's nice after fighting a demon yesterday."

Itachi was silent. He'd thought of something earlier, something he'd been considering ever since. He waited for Kisame to supply it, if there was any truth to his idea.

There was. "Or not," Kisame added after a pause.

Itachi nodded. "Yahiko," he confirmed.

"He's brave for a kid," Kisame grumbled, half in respect and half in shame. "Did you see how worried Same was? I bet I wouldn't have gotten nearly as torn up."

"Don't be too harsh on yourself," Itachi advised. "Same would have worried for you just as much. Besides, he's no child."

"It just sucks to be the biggest and toughest guy there, and I just stood there while he was nearly torn to shreds," Kisame admitted. "I was just watching Sasori. The look on his face was pretty bad, but then why didn't I do anything? He's right there with Kakuzu and me as the only reasonable people in this crazy group. I should have…"

Itachi put a hand on Kisame's shoulder. "You'll do better, and he'll manage." He took his hand away.

Kisame picked one of the weeds and twisted it between his fingers, watching it. "He's a weird kid, but he's alright. He's the only other water user, and Samehada likes him. I kinda like him too. He shouldn't have fought that thing." Kisame tossed the weed into the pond.

"I wish I could have," Itachi whispered. "I can't stop thinking that it would feel better if I could have faced her. I don't want to be alone or in public now. He's probably doing much better because of having proven his strength against it."

Kisame shrugged. "Still, I should've done something. He's a nice kid."

Itachi sighed. "We all have to deal with ourselves from now on."

**Deidara**

Someone pulled up just as Deidara was walking up to the shop. Dei waited until he saw them walk back out again before entering. The front desk lady, Laurie, was busy typing details into her work computer. He waited in a corner until she was done.

Laurie printed all these details out and, giving Deidara a quick smile, took the sheet back to Sasori's place. Her shoulders were slumped when she came back. Rolling her shoulders as if to wake them up, Laurie checked for other new arrivals, then rolled her chair out from behind the desk and sat near Dei. She sighed as if she was tired.

"Hey," Deidara whispered. "You okay, yeah?"

Laurie looked around. "Me and Sasori were just talking about it. Look around." She waved him over to look at the ceiling, her desk, down the hall. "Doesn't this place look...crappy? It's small, and dingy, and weirdly terrible in some way I can't define, and it's a wonder we have any customers. I don't know why anyone would bother with this place, if it wasn't the only auto shop in town."

Dei nodded. "Every town needs an auto place, yeah."

"Exactly! It's like this was a required structure in a build-your-own-town video game!" She spun around in her chair to look up at Dei. "If we're in a video game, it's time for _a lot of _upgrades."

Deidara opened his mouth and left it there. His blue eyes glazed over. Laurie heard the silence and looked up to see this. "Dei? You okay?" She stood up and shook his shoulders. Dei blinked, and his eyes refocused. Laurie sighed in relief, hands still on his shoulders. "I thought you'd gone wandering somewhere and gotten lost. Are you okay?"

Deidara put a hand over one of hers. "I'm fine, yeah," he replied in a too-steady voice. He sounded like he was drugged or suffering from massive blood loss, or perhaps had just watched his entire family die in front of him. Dei shook his head to ward off the oncoming distraction of thoughts. His hand tightened, holding hers, while not quite removing it from his shoulder.

Laurie applied mild force to his opposite shoulder. "Maybe you should sit down."

He allowed her to push him into the seat. "Oh my god, we might be in a video game, yeah," he whispered. "We could actually be in a video game. Shit!"

Before Laurie could request clarification, Dei turned to her and started counting things off on his hands. "One, that's how many bars of each type there are in this entire town. That can't be natural, hm. Two, everyone else acts, like, NPCs. That would _completely explain_ why they don't notice or respond to us being ninjas." Deidara stopped counting and just sat there, in stunned silence, eventually putting his head in his hands.

Laurie awkwardly patted his head. Did they have the kind of relationship where running hands through each other's hair in this situation was okay? Probably. He was upset, so she didn't care. "Dei?"

"Yeah?" he groaned.

"I have an idea." She leaned down to be on his level. "Sasori has a thing going with bikes. He's good with them, and they seem to like him. So, I was thinking maybe we could get out of here and open a bike shop. Someone else'll just come in to work here, right? It's too small, anyway." She looked around again. "I don't like it here, and neither does he. Not anymore."

Dei stared at her in utter bafflement. _What the hell? We could be in the freakin' Matrix, and she's talking about changing her career?! _"Uh, did you hear what I said? We could literally be living in a video game, yeah!"

Laurie nodded. "This place is several upgrades overdue by any measure, so I'm in the mood to be getting out. What do you think? Could we do it?"

_What the hell? _"What?!"

"You know, my idea. You think we have enough business savvy to pull it off?" She looked at him, visibly eager for approval.

_How can this be her biggest concern after - oh. Yeah. She's one of the NPCs, yeah. That's how. _Dei tried to look happy and optimistic as he searched for some reply. "Yeah, you're good with people, and he knows how things work. You could totally do that, yeah."

Laurie hugged him tightly. "Thanks!"

Deidara hugged her back reluctantly, already feeling pangs of mild grief. _She's not real. Damn...could've fooled me. _She felt good to hug anyway, so he did, and tried not to cry. _Fuck me, hm. _

Laurie stepped back. "Thanks. I've never made this big a move before, but now… Hey, what's wrong?" She looked into his eyes with worry.

Dei dodged her eyes expertly and ran a sleeve over his face, sniffling. "Nothing, hm." _She's still nice, still helped us, hm. She can still be my friend, even if she's different. _He tried to think that was all it was. Different. There were a lot of people who were different in the world, right? Who cared? He could manage her being a little different from the rest of his friends. _Oh god, how do I know about the world? Was I programmed with that knowledge? Could I actually go see the world? Can I leave town?! _His blood turned to ice water again, and his knees turned weak. He tried to take deep breaths, and not panic. "Oh, god, hm." He wasn't entirely succeeding.

Laurie was much more worried than before. "I'm gonna go get Sasori."

"No, don't!" Deidara almost yelled. Sasori was the last person who needed to know about this. "It's okay, let him do his job, yeah. I'll call somebody else. Everything's fine, I just need someone from back home to talk to, yeah." He pulled out his phone and hit a random button in his contacts.

The phone rang once. Laurie glanced between him and the doorway leading to the rest of the shop. _Please don't get him involved, hm. _The phone rang again. She waved at him, a weird sideways wave. Dei realized and threw himself off the chair, landing on a crouch in the corner. The phone started to ring a third time as Laurie sighed, looked at him with concern one last time, and rolled the chair behind her desk again. Dei's knees weakened again, this time with relief, so he sat on the floor.

The phone did not finish ringing a third time. "Yello?"

"Oh, thank every god there is, yeah," Dei said in one long exhale. _After everything that's happened, this is the last thing Sasori needs to know, yeah. _Dei would shoulder any burden, if that kept it from crushing Sasori. He hadn't realized that before. A warmth spread in the blond's chest, and he realized a part of himself he hadn't known of before.

"Um...sure."

**Hidan**

"Cool shit?" he asked hopefully. Hidan was always on the lookout for cool things, especially cool people. Now that he'd been kicked out of the base, and the birds had gone from the Bird Tree, he was more than enthusiastic about cool things elsewhere.

"Huh? Oh," Deidara answered. "Uh…"

Well, that wasn't quite accurate. Hidan hadn't been kicked out of the base, so much as gotten pumped with what felt like 50, 000 volts of electricity and lost consciousness shortly after Deidara left. Upon slowly making his way back to consciousness, he'd resurfaced to find himself as far away as he could have gotten in a short timeframe, and mostly free from electric feelings. Hidan's back still tingled and the world seemed to dim if he turned to face in the direction of the hotel again. Konan didn't have a phone of her own yet, so he was just going to have to wait for her to be done.

"Tell me," he ordered. "I'm bored. Spill."

"Wemightbeinavideogame," Deidara mumbled quickly.

Hidan was very fluent in mumble. "Really? What kind?"

"Um…" _What's he so hesitant about? It's nothing bad._

"Spill!"

"Laurie thinks it might be one of those ones where you build your own town," Dei said hurriedly. "There's just one of everything we need, and I'm sure at least some normal people have seen my hands, but they don't act like it, hm. Like NPCs."

Hidan frowned. "I don't think so. You might _build_ one of everything you need in those games, but _every _game with a town has just one of everything. Considering we've got NPCs with fully interactive backstories and real personalities, we're probably in a much more advanced kind of game. That shit's for little bitty apps. We're talking full console business here."

Deidara was quiet for many seconds. "You're not scared?" he asked.

"Hell no," Hidan assured. "Firstly, I've heard of this before. There was this one game I read an article about somewhere that had NPCs where, if you picked one and followed them, they would live out a whole day. Like, you could follow a guy from his house to some other lady's, and he was cheating on his wife, and they were all doing all this shit completely outside of whatever you were doing. This sounds like that, but even _more_. Secondly, this is one damn nice game. It's like it's meant for us. We're kings! Thirdly, we're not living in a game, but it's fun as shit to think about."

"What?!" Dei yelled over the phone. "What do you mean, we're not? How do you - "

Hidan got the most _genius_ idea. "Hey, I'm gonna go visit our neighbors! They have to be cool. Call you back sometime." He ended the call and took off racing. _Hey, where'd she say our neighbors are again? Eh, they're werewolves or something. Just follow the smell of dog!_

Hidan dropped to all fours, and stayed there for a moment to relish the feeling of touching the soft, moist forest ground. _Purrrrrrrrr…_ There was no sense like touch, not for people in human bodies who had their hands taken away from touching anything by design. Hidan liked to dig in the ground sometimes just to keep his hands adequately supplied with stimuli. Dogs liked to dig too. They must be awesome! Off Hidan raced, still on all fours.

Hidan suddenly became hyperaware of everything around him. Up ahead, he would pass by a fallen tree that jutted up off the ground and ended at nearly a right angle to a rock. It was time. Hidan took that turn, feeling the scythe on his back more clearly than he had ever felt it before. _Handle down? Check. Let's go!_

Hidan could feel the pivot point at the bottom of his lower back like it was struggling to burst from his skin and grow into a real tail. He lashed his tail from side to side, and burst out laughing in helpless glee at the feeling of the scythe's head brushing back and forth against his back. Hidan's hands sunk into the end of the fallen tree, and threw him forward, along its former trunk and up into the air. He got so, so many splinters, all of them fabulous. Hidan's high, manic laugh sounded again as he went higher, higher, and his balance stayed absolutely on line. He could feel his imaginary tail straining to bend sometimes, which the scythe's handle wouldn't allow, but it was enough for keeping his balance on this tree. It was enough.

Hidan's tail strained to the left as he pushed himself to the right, flying off the broken end of the tree. The conveniently placed rock was an alright landing spot, with the right grip. "The right grip" meant that Hidan had to rotate his body in the air so that he would be facing the rock as he approached. Hidan had tried before to figure out his legs so he could do this, but his legs weren't the problem. He'd never succeeded in landing on the rock without terrible bruises before.

It was all instinct. Hidan was free to watch himself, momentarily floating out of his body and looking. He watched as his tail - the scythe handle - went one way, and his body twisted the other way, and then his legs kicked out as his tail frantically spun from side to side, and then it went down, throwing his lower body into the air in a perfectly choreographed movement that ended with Hidan facing in the right direction with his body angled downward, his hands reaching out to get a grip on the stone. Then he was back in his body and it all happened so fast, Hidan had no idea what was happening until his chakra channeled itself down to his feet to keep from sliding off the edge of the rock. Then he found himself on the rock, with his chakra holding his hands on the other side, and the rounded top of the stone pressing into his unbroken ribs. Though unbroken, they were probably starting to bruise. It was the happiest bruising of Hidan's life.

The forest echoed with high-pitched feline yowling sometimes shading into laughter.

.

Hidan walked up to the door and knocked on it. It was a useless gesture, since the snarling of the large canine sitting on the porch was enough of an alarm. Hidan knew another one was behind him without looking. He'd been followed the whole way here, as he followed what human scent he could find in the mess of dog scent. Hidan stood perfectly calmly on the front porch of the rather large cabin, occasionally shifting his feet just to hear the old boards squeak. The door opened a little, enough for watchful eyes to peer out. "Who are you?"

"I'm Hidan. My buddies and I just moved in, and I wanted to meet the neighbors. I'm the guy who was just yowling just now, and you may have smelled my campsite a while away from here, closer to the lake." He peered back at the surprised eyes. "One of my buddies, my _best_ one, told me there was at least one cool guy here. Uh...Sa - Sakumo?"

"He's out with the pack," said the guy opening the door wider. He looked young, or at least his hair made him look like it. His jaw was slightly wider than normal, and Hidan was amazed to see snaggleteeth poking out from under the man's lips. The guy's _hair_, though, was fantastic. It striped his head in gold and black, the colors of tigerhood. Hidan glanced down. No tail. _Aww. _He continued to stare at the guy's snaggleteeth, disappointed when his own tongue failed to find any edge sharper than normal human teeth in his own mouth.

The tiger guy sniffed at him. "You don't smell like cat," he murmured.

Hidan nodded. "I sure don't. Not completely sure what I am. All I know is, it's a lot _like_ a big cat, so I think of myself as one 'cause it works."

The man stared back at him. "What kinds of meat do you like?" he asked, shyly. The wolves' ears twitched, and the one on the porch went back to watching Hidan from a resting position. That was not a voice of tension.

"What kind do you have?" Hidan asked while starting to bob up and down. _Best neighbors ever! _

He selected squirrel and rabbit, even though he was hungrier for more. Konan would probably have some pieces of those deer left after she was done. They were inside before Hidan thought to ask, "Hey, what's your name?"

"Ah, Hatake Mitsuki," the tiger guy replied as he bent down to the small fridge. He cracked open a single beer for himself. "What about you? Your family name?"

Hidan looked down to the floor. "I don't have one," he said sadly. "I don't have any memories from before I ran away."

"Oh," the tiger man said. It was all he had to say. What could anyone say to that?

"I think I'm starting to get a family now, though," Hidan remembered. He started to purr in between words. "There's Konan - she's like me, you'll love her - and the others. They're all…" He searched for the right word, didn't find it, and settled on, "awesome! They pet me, and talk, and fight sometimes if they have to. We're called the Akatsuki. One of them's the guy who found me after I ran away, the first anything I remember. He's kind of like family and kind of like a friend. I'm totally bringing him here sometime!"

Nothing Mitsuki could say now would stop him; Hidan was on a roll. "There's also Sasori, who builds shit and is good if you want to be quiet for a while. Deidara's fun, and he can fly! Kisame's kinda cold and doesn't like to hang out with anyone, but, wait a sec, he's half shark or something! You guys should totally meet him. Kakuzu, that's the guy who found me, he's grumpy but he'll play cards. Then there's Nagato and Yahiko, who always go together, and they have so much fun and are good for talking, and they're nice to everyone. Nagato's really smart, and Yahiko looks at things differently. Konan's good for play fighting or real fighting, I think they're the same for her. And Itachi's super quiet and doesn't talk much, but when he does it's really smart. I think talking more would distract him from his thinking. And that's my family, as of now." Hidan's scythe slid across his back, brushing the fabric of his cloak back and forth as his tail swished happily. His eyes were alight and his tongue stuck out of his mouth through his front teeth.

Mitsuki, the tiger guy, stood quietly and took this all in. "They sound like a good family," he offered.

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan looked around. "Where's the food again?"

'"Oh!" Mitsuki raced off to get it. He asked from another room, "So were you sent here to visit, or was there nothing happening, or what?"

"Konan's doing a thingy that felt bad, so I can't be in the base right now," Hidan explained. "Don't ask. I once freaked out over some kind of abstract color painting. There's a bunch of things that feel bad for no reason."

The tiger man returned with a plate. "Well, here's to family," he toasted. "If you stay for a few more hours people will come back, but I think everyone else is out hunting or relaxing right now. Spring, you know?" He clinked his bottle against Hidan's plate.

Hidan nodded. "Almost everyone's got day jobs, so, same. Spring! You like digging?"

Mitsuki did, and so did the wolves. Hidan was careful to remove his cloak first, explaining that it was his precious uniform. The air smelled of earth in short order. The others didn't quite like digging as much as Hidan did, so they left him alone to roll in it. Lying in the soft, good-smelling earth, with his skin and his hair covered in it, Hidan purred and stretched lazily. It was suntime, and the tree cover over this area of ground was perfect; there was none. Mitsuki understood perfectly, but was unwilling to get his clothes all dirty. Hidan said something that was probably dirty, but he didn't really know. He was already sinking into a nap.

Mitsuki brushed more dirt over Hidan to both make a warm blanket and shield his skin from the sun. He lounged on the porch in a patch of sunlight, beginning to feel drowsy himself. He looked inside at Hidan's cloak hanging over the side of a chair. Akatsuki, huh? It was a nice name. He wondered about some of those friends Hidan had mentioned, and stifled a yawn. He'd talk with Sakumo, after his nap, of course.

Hidan dreamed of running in the forest toward his friends, and his fingers twitched. _I'll find you guys, just wait! And then, we'll be together. _He purred in his sleep. _Konan..._

.

**A/N: Everything after Kisame's scene was written today, which is why this is a few hours later than usual. Sorry. **

**Believe it or not, I came up with Hatake Mitsuki first. He was supposed to be some cousin of Kakashi's. He looks a little like Mizuki, the first-episode villain with a similar hairstyle, so I think my mind gravitated to something that sounded similar. I just kind of kept him in mind as I was thinking of Kakashi and Orochimaru's story progressing, and the two of them eventually having kids. I never bothered coming up with a name for Orochimaru's kid when I got to that point. But _then, _I heard spoilers about Boruto that said Orochimaru had a kid in that show and his name was Mitsuki. I thought, "I came up with that name totally on my own! Awesome! Orochimaru's kid, you say?" So I didn't have to go to any effort making up a name, after all. That was awesome. **

**Disclaimer: I have no idea what a bookie is, exactly. I've just heard the word used in shows and such enough that it felt like the right one to use here. I asked, and was told a bookie was a little different but close enough. **


	36. Coil

**A/N: Everything after the lifting of unnoticed tension (nearly the entire chapter) was written today. I always knew this time would come, but have never been able to predict how I would handle it: the time when I got caught up in another fandom and wasn't thinking of Naruto at all. _Dun Dun Dun_**

**The other fandom in question is Good Omens. It actually deals with some of the more religious elements I've discussed in this story, so if anyone reading this really liked that scene where they were all sitting around the fire discussing the nature of divinity and free will, you might like Good Omens. It's on Amazon Prime, and also available as a book. Where do you think I get this kind of material from, if not from what I see and read? **

**In other news, optimism! I got right back into the swing as soon as I got around to starting to write this chapter. _Starting_ is the hard part, and why I made a schedule for myself. Thanks to my posting schedule and the fact that I'm using this story as a weird kind of therapy, I do not see any reason to fear I will drop it. Worry not! **

**.**

**Konan**

She stepped back to analyze her work. Her heart was pounding. To Konan's surprise, her hands were also shaking and all the hair on her body was standing on end. Yet, she had to restrain her breath from fluttering out of her mouth as a silent laugh. She realized she'd unconsciously started to scratch at her gums, which itched badly from nerves. It seemed like a muddled mixture of good and bad nerves. Part of her sent up unwanted thoughts like _I should get out of here. This isn't right. It doesn't feel right at all. _The other part of her had to be consciously restrained before it could add the last touch to the design on the floor. She wanted to take a moment to admire her work, before finishing it.

Konan stood on the outer edge of a complex geometrical design, her back facing the basement door. In the center of the basement floor was a large symbol of Jashin; the span from the base of the triangle to where its opposite point met the circle was long enough for someone short to lie in. Konan pushed any thoughts about that out of her head. The symbol was almost black, its blood having dried from being the first symbol drawn. The moment where line met curve and the symbol had been completed had immediately changed the air of the room, just a little. All the hair on Konan's body had stood up straight at that moment, regardless of their actual exposure to the air. She had continued to work at a faster pace, losing track of time. She had yet to wonder about any side effects this ritual might have had beyond the basement atmosphere.

Konan stood now at the edge of a strange design composed of 4 intersecting curves inside a square. There were four of these designs in total, arranged in a circle around the central symbol. Between them, she had carefully traced another four designs. The others were perfectly symmetrical, and she had been able to draw them easily by beginning with her fingers together, then tracing down and out to form compact loops, which cut themselves off below the starting point as their lines converged, her fingers meeting well below the loops. The result looked like the offspring of a needle and a pair of scissors. It also looked like the representation of the number one. Konan supposed either could be the point, if the design had a point at all.

Each supporting glyph, though smaller than the central symbol, shivered with its own unconnected power. The last step had been to draw lines, connecting the tip of each needle and the midpoint of the edge of each square to the central circle. Konan reflexively shuffled through everything that could possibly hold significance as she did so. _Three. Infinity. Four. One. Eight. All very important numbers. _3 - a traditionally fortunate number, and the number of stability. Four - traditionally unfortunate, related to death. One - unity. Eight - harmony (not the same as unity). And, of course, infinity - the number of divinity. What struck Konan most forcefully was the balance of it all. Konan was aware of how things were thought of, regardless of her own thoughts on the same topics. Hidan's religion was murderous, painful, barely a religion, actually not a religion according to Hidan's exclamation, and seriously restraining his true battle capacity. The first two, she knew, would make it seem like something terrible, not belonging to a rational order of things. Hidan's behavior did not help that perception.

Konan was of mixed feelings about Jashinism. For her own reasons, she'd always been reluctant to accept this view of it. If it was terrible, what else was terrible? Too many things she valued would end up in the same boat if she thought of Jashinism as something that shouldn't exist, so she refused to be intolerant of Hidan's religion. But try as she might, she couldn't be anything more than tolerant. The idea that he (either Hidan or Jashin sama, she never clarified which) was a mistake was out of the question, but that left the question of how exactly he _did_ fit. Where did he go? Why did he exist? Regardless of how he was treated, Hidan held himself like he knew his purpose for existing. What was that purpose? She'd always wanted to ask, but there was little to no excuse she could use to justify asking that. The Akatsuki was no place for getting to personally know anyone you were not partnered with, except in passing.

_It wasn't before, but now…_ Her eyes narrowed, and hands tensed. Now, the only version of Hidan she had available most likely couldn't tell her anything about his purpose. But that wasn't the reason Konan tensed. Her hands were tensed because they imagined the feeling of blood, and her eyes were narrowed because they were staring into the center of the symbol of Jashin as if it held the answers. _Three, one, eight. Balance, unity, harmony. _The air in the room, now charged with occult energy, seemed to whisper to her. Everything said that there was a purpose, there was a place. Konan's eyes flickered around as she tried to figure it out. She felt closer to some understanding. Just a little _more!_

She wondered if the unspeakable feeling of not understanding could be used to ask Jashin sama for an answer. Certainly his answer would be unspeakable and probably not understandable to her conscious, so her question should be as well. Konan dipped her fingers once more into the metallic red liquid that gave the air its taste of iron, and returned to what she thought of as the bottom of the symbol. For some reason, she thought of the symbol as facing perpendicular to one's view from the door, with the pointed bottom of the triangle pointing to one's left and the flat top of the triangle to one's right. She lowered her fingers to the tip of the needle glyph, which seemed like it would hum if her hearing was a little sharper. Konan's suspicions that the blood she traced was no longer entirely deer, that her fingertips opened as she touched each point or side, had been steadily growing ever since she'd drawn the line connecting the third glyph to the central symbol. She was nearly entirely sure that this, the eighth and last line, contained her own blood. Her breath shook, momentarily becoming harder to take in, but her hand did not shake as it met the point of the triangle.

There was a flash of searing heat. Konan drew in a sharp breath, arching her spine reflexively as the feeling shot out through her eyes, or so it felt. For a brief spark of a moment, she drifted apart from the world in a feeling of perfect clarity, not caring where or what she was. It felt deeply, deeply good and right.

Then she returned to the present. Konan noted that, even though she had, the moment of clarity did not feel as if it had ended. It seemed that she occupied two events at the same time. She shook her head. _That makes sense, somehow. Stranger things have happened._

For this same reason, she was also not surprised to see that the supporting glyphs had vanished. Her instinct to admire her work before completing the ritual had been correct. The floor of the basement was now weighted down like a balloon tied to a piano by the symbol of Jashin. The feeling of weight in it was the feeling of the symbol having gained power. Konan momentarily was possessed by thoughts that she shouldn't have done this, it was wrong, it was dangerous! The symbol itself drove those thoughts from her mind. Konan let out a sigh as previously unnoticed tension lifted from her. For the first time in a long time, the also previously unnoticed part of her mind attending to her feelings in the background was relieved. Things felt a little right all of a sudden.

She sat back, permitting herself to wallow for a few minutes. Meanwhile, in a patch of dirt far away, Hidan mumbled something and blinked his eyes open. He couldn't be sure why, but it felt like something had pushed him awake all of a sudden. He unearthed himself, shaking off whatever dirt could be shaken out of his hair, and took care to muffle his footsteps as he passed by Mitsuki. This attracted the attention of several pointed muzzles, with vastly more pointed teeth. Hidan returned straightaway with only his cloak and his scythe once more on his back, and they relaxed. He knew he was being watched the whole way until he left their territory. Heading in the direction of home no longer made him feel like he might pass out: a good sign.

Hidan zipped the cloak all the way up. Nerves tingled and butterflies were fluttering in his chest, so who knew what might happen? Turning female while he walked was certainly interesting, but not sufficient distraction. He did not notice switching his sex back and forth several more times during his journey. As he had predicted, using his new powers could be an automatic response to stress. He was no more aware of switching than he was of nervously petting the blade of his scythe. Any onlooker might have wondered how he did so without slicing his hand open.

Odds were good that he would not have noticed if he had. Hidan's mind raced with new kinds of thoughts, thoughts he could no longer ignore but wasn't sure he should accept. After the very real and very botched fight with the succubus, doubt had seized its chance to creep in. It did not creep very far, but nonetheless Hidan now entertained the thought that perhaps his plan for tonight was similarly flawed. He'd thought of it for Konan, but what if it backfired? What if she was hurt?

Hidan decided his important parts were doubt-proof enough for him to accept this, and mulled the question over for several minutes. If she was hurt, he would be just as much and more. Whatever else happened, whether she was angry at him or everyone else thought he was cruel or what, Hidan knew for sure any failure would result in massive pain the likes of which he had not previously subjected himself to. So would success, for that matter. Really, the critical point of failure in his idea was Konan's ability to push through it. If she could get through the agony, it would work, but if she couldn't he would fail. Either way involved terrible hurting. So, Hidan concluded, he might as well take what was coming and not worry over the inevitable. He was as doubt-proof as he'd thought; this was all it took to make his doubts disappear.

A cricket stopped its chirping as he passed by, then resumed. Mitsuki awoke from his nap and looked around, eventually finding the apologetic note Hidan had left on the table. He had to take it outside to read it. Evening was coming.

**Nagato**

Something in Nagato's insides twisted as the base came into view. It was pleasant and unpleasant both, and its "flavor" reminded him of Hidan somehow. No, he had no idea how a feeling could come with a particular flavor. He nonetheless detected a strong resemblance between this feeling and his interactions with Hidan, despite the fact that those were entirely different feelings. He couldn't recall ever feeling afraid of Hidan, for example. Nor had he ever felt as though ice water was trickling through his intestines, or the need to gather his courage. But then...something vaguely familiar had his fingers drumming on his legs, too. He was stopped. The familiar thing urged him onwards, but should he ignore the ice water in his guts? Ignoring instincts was universally known as a way to get killed. Of course, that might have been his own caution speaking. He was always more reluctant about things than someone like Yahiko, who would have just charged straight in.

That did it. He needed to go in before Yahiko did, investigate any kind of danger. Nagato was opening the door and looking around inside the unlit lobby before he knew it. He flicked on all the lights as he went. He'd gotten off early after a whole day spent wondering about that blood mark on Hidan's cheek. On second thought, maybe he _had _experienced being afraid of Hidan before.

Nagato resisted the reflex, honed by years of watching scary movies, to stupidly call out "Hello? Anyone here?" He never would have thought of doing that himself, and the point of every scary movie ever was to show how stupid it was, but the movies had installed that as a possible response to his situation regardless. _No, it'd only make me look silly. A ninja wouldn't do that. She'd think I was insane or incompetent. _Nagato wanted to be neither of those things. Moreover, he did not feel that such noisemaking was necessary. Comparing his situation to horror movies made him feel calmer, so he did, and concluded that his current feelings resembled nothing as much as a scene where a character might be walking through a cursed graveyard or other such site. Was it the sort of scene where a character was about to get jumped at any second now? No, he decided; he wasn't tense enough for that, and he wasn't anxiously looking for anyone. He expected to encounter Konan somewhere, but he wasn't really looking for her.

Part of the reason Nagato figured he was not going to get a jump scare scene was that his feelings had not changed. Something still seemed very different, a little wrong, like he wasn't meant to be so close to it, and he was certainly on edge, but it was no different from his previous apprehension. Being closer did not make him inexplicably panicked, which probably meant that whatever it was was docile. _I hope. _As long as he found it before anyone stumbled into it, everything would be just -

Konan appeared in front of him, covered in blood and emanating whatever it was that was making Nagato nervous. _Aah! _He jumped, and upgraded to terrified immediately. His chakra wavered but got into position. His first thought was that she was possessed, just like Hidan had been, and he really was in a horror movie! His hands tensed, feet spread, and Nagato was suddenly extremely aware of his surroundings. He reflexively did something with his arm, and there was a sharp pain in his palm. _Ow ow ow what is that? _The strange feeling divided his fear. Whatever he what might have done did not happen.

Konan was very glad for this. She'd been startled too, and readied herself for battle in a similar way. Unlike Nagato, she was surprised in a very calm mood, and recognized who he was. She was genuinely worried that he might be unable to stop, until his face twisted. She already had a kunai in her hand as part of her response. Nagato didn't have kunai on him, but he'd made a similar motion as if he had one in a wrist holster. Konan remembered that, in a way, he _did _always have blades on him. She stepped forward and grabbed his left arm, being careful not to bend it. Nagato stepped back, wincing and recoiling from the smell of blood. Konan held up the chakra rod he'd generated.

_Blood, that thing, the weird feeling, my hand. _Nagato sorted out his priorities faster than he had thought himself capable, and looked down at his hand. He could feel it closing up and his tissues getting back into place, but his palm looked like nothing had ever happened to it. _How…? _He looked back up at the rod Konan was holding. A giant shiver wracked his body as he imagined that thing sliding out of him. _What the hell?! _

The look on Konan's face seemed reasonable; she wasn't possessed after all. He swallowed and attempted to regain his capacity for speech. "Uh…" _What is that thing, and how did I do that? _He motioned at the rod with his left hand, which should _not_ have been as okay as it was.

Konan smiled in a way she hoped was reassuring. "It's alright," she told him. "This rod can receive chakra signals that you transmit. Your original used these to control inanimate bodies. They also make useful blades, which is why you drew it. That's to be expected." She held up the kunai in her own hand.

_Oh. Right. Expected. _He tried to unruffle his metaphorical feathers, and failed. _I have giant pieces of metal in my arm somehow! Perfectly expected! And my hands instantly heal! _Between standing on the modern day equivalent of a cursed graveyard and having just witnessed an act of unconscious self-mutilation, he was _extremely freaked out_. Nagato felt something slip, and tried to ready himself for panic.

Konan put all her weapons away, throwing the short rod in her pouch along with her kunai, and grabbed his shoulders. "Nagato!" He let out a high pitched whimper and tried to pull away from her. He succeeded, but then she stomped on his foot. Nagato stumbled and fell, letting out a strangled cry as he touched the floor. His visible eye darted downwards, and that was all Konan needed to finally understand.

"Nagato!" She gripped his shoulders again and shook him back and forth, before reaching beneath his arms and hauling him to his feet. He blinked and seemed to regain control over himself, though he still trembled. Konan kept her fingers dug into his shoulders. "Nagato. It's alright."

He shook his head no. "I just…" he looked down at his hand, "and this place…" Nagato squeezed his eyes very, very tightly and pushed back the fear. "Thank you."

Konan deemed it safe to let go of his shoulders and step back. "Do not worry. It's nothing you need to be frightened of." She held out a hand. "I wouldn't take you anywhere you'd be in danger."

Nagato slapped his hands together like he was praying and concentrated on summoning all his courage. _It's okay. She wouldn't. I know she wouldn't. _She was currently covered in too much blood to have shed it all herself. _She wouldn't. She knows what would be dangerous to me, and she wouldn't take me… She does _know_, right? _Yeah, this line of thought wasn't working. He thought of Yahiko instead and tried to pretend he was as brave as Yahiko was, which was a far more effective strategy. Hesitantly, he took her hand.

Konan tried to project confidence and let no disappointment show on her face. Her brother's clone he may be, but her brother he was not. What right did she have to ask him to trust her? It was a miracle he did trust her at all. The death of her entire new family bit like frost, freezing over its own wound. Like cauterization, it was a minor blessing, but she'd take anything. She tugged him after her, gently. She couldn't hurry him. He wouldn't accept that now, and perhaps not ever.

He followed. At a slow walking pace, they made their way in the direction of the basement. She thought it required to warn him first. At the top of the stairs leading down to the basement, Konan turned and halted in front of Nagato.

"I understand," she told him. "Something feels eerie, wrong. As if you aren't supposed to be associated with it at all."

Nagato nodded.

"That's all right, and exactly what I expected." She had expected nothing, because she hadn't thought this through at all, but no way she was going to tell him that. "What I've done is, essentially, install a giant drain in the floor of the basement. It's not a real drain; it's the symbol of Hidan's original's religion. You aren't a Jashinist, so I am not surprised you react poorly to it. I ask you to trust me." Konan wished she'd started this discussion while they were near her room. "The instruction booklet I received from the demon boy was very specific. This symbol will not have any significant influence. Beyond the basement, you will be fine, and so will everyone else. You may need some time to adjust, but nothing is actually wrong. I promise."

He nodded again. _Why would you do something like that without asking anyone's opinion? We just fought a demon who was angry at us for introducing that god! Who could possibly have wanted anything more? _The amount of respect he felt he got was dropping like a rock. He tried not to let that show.

Konan turned and led the way down to the basement door. Before opening it, she took his hand and squeezed. "I know I haven't done much to earn anyone's trust," she admitted, "but this was something important to me. If nothing else, try to trust that I didn't make a mistake with something I wanted to do correctly." She opened the door, not expecting a response.

Every hair on Nagato's body stood on end as soon as the door was open wide enough for him to see the symbol. He felt its power from all the way out by the door. _Yikes! That is the definition of a slumbering beast, and I'm right here outside its den. _He squeezed Konan's hand for attention and shook his head. He was not going in there.

Konan sighed and closed the door. She sounded almost wistful. "My perspective is different. I see it as a little frightening, in the way of a challenge, not a true danger." She turned and leaned back against the door. "To me, the feeling is more pleasant. It feels somewhat like rightness and somewhat like wrongness, with the balance tilting towards the former. I'm sorry it has such a different effect on you."

Nagato's throat was dry, and his swallowing was insufficient to remedy that. "Were those deer?" he croaked, in reference to the brown and red shapes he'd seen lying on the far side.

Konan nodded. "Yes. I was surprised to learn that any blood could be used for this: human, animal, or even plant for some parts. It seems Jashin sama is more lenient than I thought. I've only ever heard of human sacrifices being used before."

Nagato swallowed again. "Plant blood?"

"Sap." She gestured for them to go back up to the ground floor. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to wash up."

Nagato was surprised to discover that after seeing it in the basement, he really did feel much better. The feeling of wrongness had almost entirely disappeared. It must be a lot easier to acclimate than he had thought it would be. Aside from the blood, he had no problems with walking next to Konan while he thought. He wondered about the aura he'd detected earlier. Was it just a remnant of having recently completed that ritual, or did she still have it and he was getting used to it?

"You're early," Konan observed. "What did you come back for?"

"Oh." Nagato had completely forgotten his reason for returning. "It's about Hidan."

"What about him?" She paused outside her door, ready to answer his question before cleaning her outfit.

Nagato sheepishly told her about the events of that morning, leaving out exactly how close to afraid he'd been before he found a reason to be. "His not replying was disturbing, considering how he's Hidan," he admitted. "I stayed there at the door, waiting to see what would happen. I thought maybe he was sleepwalking. He could have been, but what kind of sleepwalking - Never mind, that's skipping ahead. The next thing that happened was, he dropped his cloak on the floor like it was any random thing, and then he turned around. I'm pretty sure I saw a dark red smudge on his cheek, near his mouth. And his eyes weren't the right color." Nagato paused here to shiver. "They were blue, I think. I didn't want to look too closely."

Konan's eyes were dilating, the only readily noticeable sign she was interested in this story. "May I guess what happened next?" she asked.

"Sure." Nagato had no idea how anyone could expect to predict anything about what had happened.

Konan narrowed her eyes in thought. "Nothing happened," she predicted. "He was unresponsive, did not notice you, did not react. Am I correct?"

"Not quite," Nagato corrected. "I mean, that was true as long as his eyes were like that. But he was just about to go back to sleep, so some pink came back into his eyes, and he mumbled something at me when I asked him a question."

"Interesting," Konan murmured. "Thank you for telling me about this; it may be very important. By all means, what did he say?"

"He mumbled something like…" Nagato tried to play the whole scene again in his head with no distortions. "Ne uh brl," he slurred. "Sorry, that's as close as I can remember it."

Konan tilted her head and squinted like it would make the sounds clearer. "Ni de brl," she tried. "Need. Need...blrd. Blood? Hm...need blood." She nodded to herself.

Nagato's mouth fell open. "What?" was all he could manage to ask.

Konan patted him on the shoulder again. "It makes sense," she told him. "You've seen how Hidan acts like a big cat. He has some reason to. You see, part of the Jashinist ritual that Original Hidan used to use in battle involved ingesting a trace of blood from his enemy."

Nagato was completely lost. She nodded to him, silent reassurance that she would make a meaning out of these pieces soon.

"He was very bloodthirsty, always eager to kill more and greater amounts of people," she continued. "If he was not allowed to, he got on everyone's nerves complaining about having nothing interesting to do. He did not derive as much enjoyment from normal interaction as our Hidan does. He lived for hunting.

"After a while, I began to notice something interesting in his complaining. I occupied a middle position, interfacing between the leader and the rest of the group. Because of that, it was part of my unofficial duties to keep a watch over them, looking for subtle discord. That's why I was the first to take note of his complaints whenever he was held back for a week or more.

"I was in the ideal position: close enough to see his behavior, not close enough to have a default response to him. I never learned to tune him out, so I was astounded to hear what I did the first time he was back for so long."

Nagato nodded to hurry her along. "So what was it?" A little rude, but the symbol and its power had faded to background noise, leading to Nagato not noticing that he wasn't calm.

Konan thought group dynamics would have been interesting. Maybe this version of Nagato had no desire for leadership. "He started complaining of being hungry and eating more."

Nagato blinked. "No." That was all he said.

"No what?" Konan inquired.

"We just fought a soul-sucking demon and had a portal to God installed in the basement. Hidan cannot, I mean _cannot, _be a vampire. He just can't be." Nagato shook his head to emphasize this point.

"He isn't," Konan said gently. She began to worry as she had worried that day one week before, when she had asked them all to believe the impossible. What they'd learned since was too much for their new limits, but she could do nothing to slow it down. An entire other world was colliding into theirs and all she could do was try to make it easier to swallow. "Hidan is not a vampire. You don't need to worry about that."

Nagato took a deep breath. "Then what are you trying to say?" He sounded desperate. Konan wished she'd never said anything.

"Think of it as an unusual dietary requirement," she tried to advise. "Other food didn't satisfy him unless he had some small amount of blood in his diet. Beyond that, he's perfectly normal." The last sentence was a lie, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"So, only _kind of_ vampiric?" Nagato summarized.

Konan shrugged. "However you would like to think of it."

"Do you know if anyone's put alcohol in the kitchen yet?"

Konan allowed herself to chuckle. That was a much better idea than freezing, and perfectly reasonable. "I don't believe so. I'm sorry."

"I'm going to be burrowed into my bed, then." Nagato turned in the direction of his room. "I am going to hide like a scared bunny and not come out for possibly a whole day." His words spoke that he was going to commit himself 100 percent to this course of action, no embarrassment, and anyone who wanted to say otherwise was in danger of ending up on the end of his newly discovered blades. As Hidan would have put it, he'd put down all his fucks and left them for the next guy to carry.

That was in fact what Hidan was thinking at that exact moment. He edged out of hiding and over to Konan's side as soon as the door down the hall closed. "I heard some tones of voices and the bit about the alcohol," he muttered. "He's not feeling great."

Konan nodded. "He's been through a lot." She reached over to hold Hidan's hand. That was when she finally got around to remembering those unintended side effects she hadn't been thinking of earlier.

"You okay?" Hidan asked, with full knowledge that the answer was no.

Konan squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

"For what?"

"Something happened a few hours ago, didn't it?" She knew full well the answer was yes.

"Just something like being electrocuted, and a teeny-tiny blackout, and then I woke up a while away from here," Hidan admitted. "Nothing major. Why?"

Konan thought she probably should have remembered to warn him before completing the symbol. A new knot of anxiety formed in her chest, to add to her collection. She was never like this before. There was a reason she'd held the position she'd described to Nagato. On a mission, she would have remembered to take into account her teammates in any action. In the rain, her mind and soul held themselves together beneath the weight of a cloud-filled sky. Here, the clouds were gone, and something within was straining to get free. Konan's stomach sank, freezing at the thought of her very self breaking up.

"Hidan?"

"Hm?"

"Promise."

There he was, doubting again. What he'd thought of involved a lot of breaking, and here she was, already too close to that. Then again, the flip side of "breaking is going to happen anyway" is "breaking is going to happen anyway." He could take it as a reason to back off and leave her be, or he could take it to mean leaving her be was the last thing he should ever do. Hidan unwrapped his fingers from hers and extended his arm to hold her fully against his side. "I promise. I'll collect you and hold you up for gluing and all that."

Konan leaned into him. "I've lost track of where everything goes," she murmured into his chest.

Hidan rocked her back and forth. "You need a mirror, you get a mirror." He could imagine that on a business card: Hidan, Professional Mirror. The only downside was how many times he would have to explain what that meant. On second thought, he probably shouldn't have a business card.

They stood like that for a few minutes, until Hidan yawned and something in him finally registered the presence of blood. Konan remembered about washing her cloak, and went off to do just that. Hidan scratched his head against the doorjamb and wondered what to do now.

Should he warn her? No, he decided, that would make it harder. A scary thing was always the scariest to anticipate, so he should give her as little time to anticipate as possible. Should he warn everyone else? That would be great, except for the aforementioned anticipation and the fact that he didn't precisely know what he would warn them of. Oh well, looked like the whole production was going to be a surprise. He wondered about how to manage everyone so they were anywhere near ready to handle a surprise like this.

Nagato lay on his bed with the pillow pressed firmly over his head and the blankets wound around him like a cocoon. He just wanted the day to be _over_. Little did he know it'd barely begun.

.

**A/N: Yay, someone who speaks mumble! **

**In other news: uh oh. I started feeling really bad for everyone as soon as I was writing this last section. I'm so sorry, guys. This is supposed to be the part where everyone starts to feel better, I promise. I'm so sorry Konan. Hang in there!**

**I did not intend for last chapter's title to have a double meaning, but I needed something to name this chapter, so last's chapter's title is now a verb as well as a season. You're welcome.**

**Have as much fun as you can with the coronavirus, everyone! That's always important. Can't believe things had to get this bad right at the start of spring break, though. So sad. **


	37. Snap

**A/N: I literally just realized 10-15 minutes ago that the money was never actually moved out of the basement. I need to explain what she did with it. **

**Speaking of paper products, get some tissues. Lots of tears ahead.**

**.**

**Konan**

_I should have gotten a replacement uniform at the tailor's when I was there with Hidan._

Washing blood out of clothes is hard. It is doubly hard when there is a lot of it, and triply hard when one lacks the appropriate supplies. Konan never cursed aloud, but some of her thoughts were less than family friendly as she tried putting together replacement soap by the side of the river. _What the hell do people use in this world?!_

If she'd been back home and preparing to go out on a mission, she would have had the appropriate supplies. Konan cursed herself as well as everything else for not having thought to pack blood-cleaning supplies on her person before she died. She'd been in her own home village and, if she went to a little extra effort to be honest, hadn't really expected to survive. She would have done several things differently if she had known dying wasn't the end.

Meanwhile, something more worrisome buzzed around the edges of her mind, always annoying, never leaving. If she did by some miracle manage to wash this thing, the entirety of it was going to be wet, and that would mean she'd have nothing to wear. That was the _other_ reason why all Akatsuki members carried a very small sealing scroll with a spare uniform in it. Spilling enough blood to cover most of the uniform was supposed to be rare, but so was destroying the uniform. Konan was fairly sure she, Nagato, and Yahiko were the only people to ever wear the uniform who hadn't gotten it destroyed at least once. The bottom line was, that was another thing she wasn't carrying right now, so what was she going to wear?

The cloak was like a second skin to her. It was the symbol of everything she was and where she belonged. It was her armor. It was her comfort, a constant reminder of home. It was also very comfortable. Being looked at without it felt like being looked at while drunk in a gutter somewhere. Her spine tingled to consider the very idea. She shivered. What was she going to do?

_My options are: wear a wet uniform, wear a bloodstained uniform, or don't wear a uniform. _The third was what she was trying to avoid, the first would be extremely unprofessional and uncomfortable, and the second would just be **bad**. _Do I have any other options? _Konan considered other, more radical ideas. Race to the tailor's right now? _Odds are against that. Besides, I have to be here to explain what's happened; Hidan certainly can't show them the symbol. _Borrow someone else's cloak? _That's a good idea. I'll be sure to ask Hidan as soon as I return. _Just in case that didn't work, she considered other ideas. She didn't know any fire or wind style jutsu, so it would be difficult to try to dry her cloak really quickly. Hiding like a scared rabbit wasn't an option. Wait! Hadn't the demon boy made a deer? There was no reason he couldn't make a cloak. That idea merited a good thirty seconds of consideration while she sat there. Then Konan returned to trying to figure out how to get the blood out of her uniform.

Fifteen minutes later, Konan formed a giant needle out of paper and used it to pin her cloak to the center of the newly-installed symbol in the basement. She then closed her eyes and meditated until something shifted, either in the air or inside herself. When she opened her eyes, there was no blood. Konan repeated this procedure using the deer carcasses and paper spears before leaving the basement. When she passed Hidan as he was in the middle of pacing up and down the hall, her first words were, "Don't say anything."

"Wouldn't dare," he replied. His mouth kept moving afterwards, whispering things to himself. He seemed to be deeply lost in thought.

"What are you thinking about?" Maybe she could help.

"Can't say. Gotta figure it out myself." He stopped walking and stared at the wall. "You think I should do this really quickly to get it over with faster, or wait so everyone has a chance to relax?"

Konan blinked. "Do what?" Her heart thumped in her chest. Maybe it knew something she didn't.

Hidan gestured, swinging his arm in circles in the air. "Y'know, that thing you asked about a couple days ago. That 'having your life and future in my hands' thing. Fixing shit. I thought of something, but then Laurie was staying, but now she isn't, so tonight's the night."

Konan's throat dried. She remembered asking him a couple days ago, the day the succubus had arrived, to fix her situation. The situation in question had been the rifts between her and everyone else, which had seemed likely to drive at least a few of them out of the Akatsuki. She remembered Nagato. Whether or not she wanted to be honest, she was simply unable to avoid admitting that nothing had improved since then. She still needed some help, and who better than Hidan to provide it?

But one question remained: what could he possibly have planned to fix everything?

Her palms were moist. Konan was abundantly aware that, on some level, she had some very strong hypotheses about what he had planned, and none of them were pleasant. If adrenaline rushes had meters, this one was rising fast. She swallowed and told him, "Get it over with."

Hidan looked disappointed. "That's exactly what I was trying to avoid," he whined. "Well yeah, now I'm gonna have to. I didn't want anyone to freak out. Fuck!"

Konan shook herself. "It's all right. I'll be out front attempting to keep everyone else calm." _And hopefully, focusing on their fears will help me avoid my own. _

Hidan looked confused. "Huh? Everyone else? Why would they need to be calm?"

Konan held up a hand. "You don't want to know too much about it. Let me just say, there is a reason why Nagato was feeling bad earlier. You and I may not feel it, but everyone else probably will. Leave it to me to help them."

Hidan sighed. "Mkay. I'll go see how he's doing and keep thinking and shit." As he turned and walked away, Konan couldn't resist following the slope of his shoulders. They looked burdened. She wanted to reach out, but had to acknowledge that her own were just as bad if not worse. She resolved to do what she could, and _only_ what she could. If that wasn't enough… _Leave the rest to fate_.

.

As expected, happiness was in short supply after she finished warning people about the change they could already feel in the air. Itachi's eyes looked murky and even more inscrutable than they usually did. Deidara got over it much quicker than expected, saying something about wanting to talk to Hidan. Kakuzu also wanted to talk to Hidan, but found plenty of time to start an interrogation first.

"Why would you do that?" he growled.

It was a good question, one that Konan didn't quite know how to answer. "My exact motives are unclear, even to me," she began. "What is clear is that I have a different reaction to the results than you do; I seem to enjoy it. Besides that, it was written in the instruction booklet the demon boy left me. And I didn't have any other plans for the day."

"It's alright," Yahiko joined in with his usual dose of optimism. "We could probably use a god on our side. He is on our side, right?"

Kisame facepalmed. Konan answered that question with, "As much as he can be, yes. Though you should be aware, he isn't very capable of being on any side. The symbol functions as a giant drain, with little influence beyond that, according to the instructions."

"See? We'll be fine," said Yahiko to Sasori, who had yet to have any reaction. The puppetmaster looked not surprised, not displeased, and not happy. In fact, he didn't look like much of anything. He exhaled slowly through his nose, still saying nothing. Konan's heart leaped as this reaction reminded her of Hidan's mysterious plans. She tried not to show anything.

"Hidan has some ideas for tonight," she warned them. _Is it really a warning if you use a euphemism? _"No, I do not know what they are. He thinks it'll provide a good start to the weekend."

Kakuzu grumbled. That much, he could find no fault with her for. Over Hidan, they agreed on things. He pushed inside, resisting the subtle wrongness in the air. That was a relief for Konan. _Now if only Kisame and Sasori are as easy to handle…_

Sasori finally spoke up. "I, for one, am tired of all these plans," he declared. "Plan this, plan that. I'm starting to feel more like a puppet than a person."

Konan snorted. It was soft, but everyone noticed. Faced with many pairs of eyes, she was forced to explain. "Your original turned himself into a puppet," she told Sasori.

Sasori's mouth fell open. Deidara started to laugh. "How?" he squeezed out between giggles. "How the hell do you do that, huh?!" He bent over laughing, like it was an excellent joke. Konan agreed it _was_ funny.

"I'm not sure." She tried not to smile, but her face was slipping. "He made an entire puppet body for himself: everything except the heart."

Deidara stopped laughing. "Wait, so he still…?" The blond connected the dots and shivered. "Aaaaand now it's gross and creepy, hm. I don't want to know how he did _that_, yeah."

Kisame audibly reacted with disgust as well. "Whatever Hidan has to say, it's definitely better than _that. _I'll get Same from the lake and find out what he wants." The shark man left.

Sasori recovered. "My _point_, accidental irony aside, was that I feel like I'm effectively working two jobs." He gave Konan a hard look. "We're not employees, and we don't have to be herded around like sheep. We're especially not _your_ employees." His eyes dared Konan to dispute this.

_What are you, then? _Konan didn't see how they could be anything else. But this was really not the time to point that out. "Feel free to take that up with Hidan," she offered. "This version of him is evidently a people person."

Sasori continued to look at her in that way, as if he was judging everything she'd ever done. _He'll be here all year if he tries,_ Konan thought bitterly. _Even if he keeps it down to everything I've done since I arrived in this world, he might be here for a couple weeks, at least._

Itachi looked to Yahiko, who provided a smile in return. That seemed to be enough for Itachi to gather his courage. Everyone but Yahiko went to investigate the basement. He stayed there, scratching just beyond the borders of the bandages on his cheek and seemingly trying to figure out what to say.

If there was one thing that Konan didn't need after her silent interrogation and judgment, it was to be alone with Yahiko. "What is it?" she asked. Hopefully whatever he wanted would be short and simple.

Yahiko fiddled with his hair. "Well…" He looked nervous, as far as Konan could tell from seeing him out of the corner of her eyes. She reminded herself that there was a wider world beyond her troubles, and he was part of it, and she could be patient.

"How are you doing?" he finally asked.

_Is that what you really wanted to ask me? What is wrong with you? _

"I'm doing perfectly well," she answered.

Yahiko raised his shoulders like he was preparing to shrug. "No." He lowered his hand to his side and looked almost directly at her. "You're not."

_And what do you propose to do about that? _Konan turned back. "Actually, I asked Hidan to come up with a solution." Her voice made it clear enough that he did not get to know what the solution was for. "He has. That is what he intends to do tonight." She waved for Yahiko to follow her inside. "Nagato may need seeing to. Go to him."

Yahiko had some idea what the solution was for, regardless of how much she did or didn't tell him. He wasn't blind. There was this whole air of brokenness around her and in everything she did. He'd spent all day after his talk with Nagato thinking. He really _should_ do something. He'd been living with this vague sense of something being not right, and most of it had to do with Konan. He had a new conviction that he should _do_ something.

But if Hidan was already doing something… That was alright. He could wait. Yahiko did as he was told. The part of him that wanted to do something felt like crying. He told himself things were being done, and don't cry, everything's really going to be alright. The strange feeling in the air reminded him of hurting, and other things that were in excessive abundance already. Why would she put even more of that into this place? At least, he consoled himself, at least it's only hurting and not something worse. He had no doubt that, if some other symbol had been drawn, the spirit of falling apart and loss could be in the basement instead.

The shape Nagato was in did not provide any reasons to enjoy the world. Yahiko found his best-ever friend sitting on his bed with his head in his hands, rubbing circles around his eyes. Naturally, he went to sit down across from Nagato. Gently, Yahiko took a gentle hold of Nagato's wrists, and drew them back from his face. Nagato looked up into his eyes. Yahiko saw something warm surge into Nagato's eyes, and his wildest expectations were surpassed when Nagato smiled. Smiled! He had been wondering what he would do, but thank the gods, with Nagato it was easy. Practically all he had to do was exist. Nagato hesitated, then took Yahiko's hands in his own before Yahiko could refuse.

"Thank you," they both said at the same time.

There was a little pause there, while they processed this mild surprise. Yahiko recovered first. "I mean, thank you for… Um... " He couldn't praise Nagato for being happy. Encouraging people to mask their feelings was a terrible thing to do, he'd heard, and that made sense. So what could he say? "Thank you for, uh, appreciating my existence."

Nagato looked confused. Yahiko hurried to clarify, "I mean, you look like you do when I'm here and even though you're feeling bad, just having me around makes it better. There's a lot of things it would be really hard or impossible for me to help with, so, with you it's really nice to be able to help, and it feels good to see how much I really can do. Thank you for looking at me so warmly like that." He really, really hoped that got his meaning across, because he was out of words.

Nagato turned almost as red as his hair. "I...I can't help it," he squeaked out. "You're...just special like that to me."

Yahiko sighed in relief. "I really wanted to do something, after what we talked about earlier," he said, "but Hidan already has something planned, and even if he didn't, Konan didn't look like she wanted me to be trying to help her. It's so _frustrating_. All I can do is sit around and hope he can handle it, but I don't want to sit around anymore. It doesn't help with everything, but being able to make you smile does help the frustration a little."

Nagato let out a short giggle. "You're welcome." He was downright grinning, seemingly uncontrollably. "I'm glad I can do that. I really should have gone first."

"Oh?"

"What _I_ meant to say was, thank you for being here." Whatever lid he'd been trying to keep on his emotions turned to dust, and Yahiko was momentarily awed at the look he saw shining through Nagato's eyes. It held such warmth in it, such love, such relief, that Yahiko teared up instantly. The sharp pain of something he didn't know had been tense suddenly relaxing stunned him. He hadn't known just how badly he needed someone in his corner like this. Tears ran down his face.

Like he could read minds, Nagato let go of Yahiko's hands and wrapped Yahiko in a tight hug. One of his hands buried itself in the hair on the back of Yahiko's head, and Nagato turned his head so his nose pressed against the side of Yahiko's face. Yahiko started to cry in earnest, huge, heaving sobs propelling him onto Nagato's shoulder. Nagato was so reassuring, so warm, so _helping_, that Yahiko could do nothing less. He was solid and strong, so Yahiko turned to liquid and let himself slosh around for however long he needed, knowing Nagato would hold him as tightly as was required.

In a liquid state like this, Yahiko was at his most ready to connect to other people's feelings. "Have you ever tried giving Konan a hug?" he whispered, after the sobs had died down and he could rest. This was _exactly _what she needed. He knew that more than he had ever known anything else.

"No," Nagato admitted. "Do you think I should?"

"Somebody has to," Yahiko protested his case. "Anyone she'll allow. I just _know_ somehow that that's what she needs."

Nagato rubbed the back of Yahiko's head and took a shaky breath. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Let's just be here for a while."

Yahiko thought his flesh might literally be turning to liquid. His whole body seemed soft and heavy like it was filled with water, and he realized without any great surprise that his eyes had drifted closed. The fog of sleep clouded over his mind, leaving him to idly wonder if babies felt like this with their mothers. Or with their brothers. Nagato was family, wasn't he? Yahiko was pleasantly surprised to realize that. He'd always thought that he wouldn't know what it was like to have a brother, because he'd only ever had an older sister. But he _did _know, kind of…

Nagato's breath remained shaky. He wasn't tense, but stray nerve endings seemed to be firing at random, provoking him to move in random ways. He felt Yahiko relax into sleep and shuddered, the pain of that piercing his skin everywhere. But as long as he got to hold Yahiko and know that _he_ had made Yahiko feel like this, Nagato would stay. The pain was sweet somehow, and giving it up was out of the question. He kissed Yahiko on the cheek, scorching his lips with the feeling of _wanting._ Resisting this made Nagato shiver, every hair on his body standing on end. He knew for sure that Yahiko would never match his feelings, because Yahiko slept now, where Nagato never would. He had never been able to sleep with Yahiko nearby.

The agony of not moving, not touching, allowing Yahiko to be with him the same way Yahiko would be with a couch, was so great it brought tears of pain to Nagato's eyes. But he could endure it. For Yahiko's sake, he promised, he would endure anything. Even though this qualified as a form of torture, he would endure.

.

Several rooms away, Hidan was visibly pale and trembling by the middle of his attempt at explaining what he was thinking of doing. "So," he aborted early, "thing slash group therapy session, in the sunroom." *wince* "Some kind of something else, if anyone wants. Fuck fuck fuck!" And he ran from the room, bent nearly in two with what could have been extreme pain or something else entirely. He'd started the explanation in female form, so some minds considered it revealing that he'd turned male midway through, without meaning to and at the same time as he'd started wincing. What the hell was he picking up on?

Konan stood just outside the doorway, trying to hold her shaking hands still. She'd started listening to Hidan from the back of the room, and edged out steadily as he proceeded. She could and would swear up and down she didn't really know what he had planned, but something was terrifying her. How soon was he going to get this over with?!

Hidan appeared in the doorway to Nagato's room, visibly shaking. He was also jerking from side to side, contorting himself as if to hide something. Nagato immediately knew what was wrong and flushed red. He shook Yahiko. "Wake up, wake up. Hidan has something important for us, Yahiko."

"Mm. Mm?"

"Yeah, uh, stat!" What Nagato could not fathom was why Hidan was looking around and shaking as if frightened beyond his wits. "Seriously, I don't mean to rush, but yes I fucking do! Got to get this over with quickly, or everything's doomed!" And he disappeared from Nagato's doorway.

Yahiko had woken up enough to hear the last of this. He looked at Nagato, very concerned, and got up to follow Hidan. Nagato was relieved and frustrated at the same time. He really had no idea what to make of his responses to Yahiko most days.

.

"Alright, listen up. I thought, after the clusterfuck of a week we've had, we could use some kind of team bonding thing." Hidan looked around to see how this was being taken.

It was not being taken well. Nearly everyone looked completely uninterested, and more than a few were glaring at him. Dei still wanted to know why Hidan had allegedly said they were not living in a video game, Sasori was in no mood, and Kisame and Kakuzu were opposed to the general idea of team bonding exercises. Yahiko was the only truly enthusiastic face there, and Nagato was trying valiantly to be enthusiastic on Yahiko's behalf. Hidan had requested some time to get everyone on board, so Konan was not present.

Overall, it was a tough crowd. Hidan aimed to soften them up. He clapped his hands together and said, "Specifically, I was thinking we should cut right to tackling the elephant in the room."

That got more of a reception. "What does that mean?" Sasori asked, his voice already having moved to high alert.

Yahiko had only one thing in his world that could be called an elephant in the room. "Konan?" he blurted.

"Yep!" Hidan fiddled with the zipper of his cloak. Dislike for things touching his neck, even lightly, was part of the reason why he usually went without a shirt at all. Of course, if he intended to be in female form (as he was now, thanks to the absence of male-specific feelings), he'd just have to get over it. He moved the zipper down to his collarbone where it was less annoying. "Shit's going on with her, and it's not good. She knows that most of all, which is why she asked me to think of something to help things, and this is what I came up with." His eyes glowed with pride. He'd have doubts some other time.

"Basically, I was thinking we should get to know her better. Does anyone have a problem with that?"

Yahiko's eyes were like stars. That was nearly everything he'd been dreaming of. The same was true of Nagato. They looked at each other, both wondering if this was too good to be true. Nagato wondered seriously, Yahiko wondered just as a courtesy to the idea that he was supposed to.

Itachi was, for the first time in Kisame's entire association with him, skeptical. "She doesn't seem very likely to cooperate," he pointed out.

Sasori was, for the first time in anyone's association with him, beyond skepticism. "Who cares? Bring her in. It's about time we got some answers."

Hidan squeaked and got up to do just that. As soon as he left, Samehada started growling. Kisame looked to see what his shark friend was growling at, only to see that Same was growling at _him._

"Same? What's wrong?" The shark started whimpering, and curled up on the floor in a variety of different ways that Kisame didn't quite know how to interpret. Distress was obvious, but he could tell nothing more.

"Hey, it'll be alright." Yahiko had come over, unable to ignore Samehada's frustrated whining. Since it had worked so well before, he gently reached out and lifted Samehada by the fins. The shark came willingly. Yahiko ended up facing Samehada face to toothy jaws. The shark licked his nose and whined.

"What's wrong?" Yahiko could feel eyes on him, and knew they were thinking what he was thinking. He was really hoping he was a Disney Prince. "How bad is it?"

Samehada lowered what passed for his head and let out a dispirited whimper. He then tried to reach forward and nuzzle Yahiko's chest. Yahiko let him. The attempt at contact clicked several things into place, and he started kicking himself for not having thought of this before. "Lonely?"

Same backed up and nodded.

"Oh…" Yahiko held the shark close. "It's not working, is it? Being babysat by whoever's available, or spending the whole day in the lake, it's not what you want at all."

Samehada made a series of sounds that sounded suspiciously like crying and crawled even further into Yahiko's lap. Yahiko petted him, his heart starting to beat a little faster. He could really try to do something now. What was he going to do?

Kisame sighed. He turned away from everyone else so he wouldn't be embarrassed by being honest. "I've been kind of worried about that. I've had no idea what to do this whole time. I'm sorry, Same. Do you have any ideas?" This last was for Yahiko.

Yahiko gulped. No matter how many times he tried to lend a hand in conflicts, and sometimes succeeded, it never got any easier. Many times, his instincts didn't quite land properly, and people who regarded him as above them just because he seemed to approach from a place without suffering refused his attempts at help. That was the downside of being a true optimist; he couldn't always be trusted like someone who was grittier and acted like they suffered would be. Nagato called it angelic. Yahiko wondered if they were right, and he was just being phony.

But in the end, his instincts were all he had, and Yahiko had tried for the longest time to reconcile himself with a reality where they were just not going to land right a certain percentage of the time. His instincts told him now to look down at Samehada. "What do you think, Same?"

Samehada wiggled until Yahiko let go, and raced around to climb onto Kisame's back. He wrapped his head around Kisame's shoulder and growled as if to declare _Mine_.

Yahiko giggled. Was it that easy? "Oh, you just want to be with Kisame more?"

Samehada rattled affirmatively and settled in to stay.

Yahiko turned to Sasori and Deidara. "Have you guys brought up any really weird things around Laurie? Aside from the succubus?"

"I told her I was a ninja, and all she absorbed was that it meant I had more endurance than her," Sasori recalled.

"She was the one who brought up the idea that we might be living in a video game, but she doesn't act like it's important at all and kept bringing up other things, yeah," Deidara chimed in.

"Okay!" Yahiko turned back to Kisame. "So, there's no reason to think it wouldn't be safe for you to bring him along instead of leaving him here every day. It'd be fine."

Kisame was extremely skeptical on the one hand. But on the other hand, there was Same's wishes to respect. His war with himself had just begun when the door opened and Hidan came back in with Konan on his heels. They filled in their usual gap in the circle, with Hidan sitting to Konan's left, on her other side from Nagato. It was a nice seating arrangement they had going on. Or at least it was, until Nagato saw how proud Yahiko looked and moved so Yahiko could stay there next to Kisame and Samehada. This involved displacing Itachi. Hidan observed that something very important must have happened for them to be split up, and elbowed Konan. She'd already seen Nagato move. It felt like a too-late portent of things already happened. _Of course he moved to be next to Yahiko. What did I expect? It shouldn't feel so meaningful._ Konan became acutely aware that she was far too close to a breaking point. Suddenly she felt very fragile.

"Everyone ready?" Hidan asked. He was going to launch this thing with _momentum_.

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"Do we have a choice?"

"Yeah!"

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan turned to Konan. Something clicked into place as he did so, and finally Konan understood. _Something like this is what I did to them, only a week ago. It's payback time. _

Time it was, payback or no payback. Hidan cleared his throat. "I wanna do a group bonding exercise," he began. "Specifically, bonding with you. The problem is, it's like you're still in another world from us. You told us _what _you expect us to be, but not _who._ All your freakin' friends are dead! So, how 'bout we hold a kind of funeral?"

_Crack. _

"Who were we? More to the point, who do you see? What's missing? What were they, to you? And…" he hesitated decorously, "who are you? This is a time for introductions too."

There was silence.

Ice crystals bloomed in Konan's blood. The silence stretched complete, inside to out. The idea of...of…

_Introducing myself..._

_Yahiko..._

_They…_

_He…_

_I…_

_Dead…_

Something clouded over Konan's vision. She thought it was ice creeping into her eyeballs, but then realized it was actually from having gone without blinking for too long.

_They…_

Was blinking possible?

Someone touched her on the shoulder. _Hanzo sama? _No; it was Itachi. That knowledge defrosted her, and Konan regained the ability to move, speak, and compose herself. She did all this automatically, turning to face forward and put her usual face on. Hidan squeezed her hand, lending her the courage of fatalism. She had her orders. All that remained was to carry them out successfully, even if it meant holding a funeral for people she could see, as clear as a sunny sky.

Thinking of it as a mission made it easier. She turned to Itachi, looking at him before closing her eyes so she would not have to see him. If she could not see this world, it was almost possible to imagine she was back in her own. Vivid memories flashed by as if they were currently happening. She felt the undisguised sting of loss for her world, and allowed herself to understand Hidan's request for a funeral. Deep down, she'd tried hard not to believe it.

She had attended many funerals, but all of them bar one were like festivals next to this. That one that was different had not ever really happened, she realized. There hadn't been a real funeral when she was younger, either. Konan felt like finding somewhere quiet to sip tea and contemplate the newly discovered fact that her life was one long string of funerals that never really happened, but she was in the middle of a mission. Retroactive grieving could wait.

"Itachi." That name brought up many suspicions and concerns. "Your original was very suspicious. Yo - he was a good person. That was what made him suspicious. He had murdered his entire clan, but even so, we had the persistent feeling that there was something off about him. Yo - he did not quite seem the type to join a terrorist organization, somehow. We suspected him of being a double agent. If any definite proof had come in, or he had begun to fail in his duties, it would have been my mission to take care of him. That was always my mission. It was not animosity; I had no personal dislike for him. Nonetheless, the Akatsuki is the most valuable thing to me, and so I made it my mission to protect it. I was always on guard around him, always watching. I could respect you, but I can never have any mercy for double agents."

She turned to face forward. She knew where they all were, and the name alone was enough to bring up the past. "Kisame.

"I felt some understanding with you, though of course I never communicated any such thing. You w - your original was tasked with the same task I took for myself: killing comrades for the sake of the village. You escorted code keepers, and when escort was impossible and there was a chance they would be captured, you prevented them from spilling the codes. That sort of position leaves one with many secrets of their own. I understood. Sometimes I wondered if you'd found answers to the kind of questions you must have had. Secretly I hoped your fate would have nothing to do with me; you seemed loyal, and your talent for sniffing out traitors was part of why you were partnered with Itachi. I do hope that your original had a worthy end."

Konan continued to address everyone in the same way she had addressed them before: right to left. It was no accident that she had broken this pattern to skip over Nagato and Yahiko. If this mission was to be completed at all, they must be saved until the end.

"Deidara. Your original annoyed the crap out of everybody, but he was competent. Actually, I found him amusing. He was always getting in trouble, being teased by Hidan, starting a fight." Konan's chest constricted with silent laughter. "There were only ever three outcomes from bringing you two together: Hidan would be clearly correct and you would take the next mission, whether it was starting a war or not, just to get away from his crowing, you would be clearly correct and Kakuzu or Zetsu or both would be assigned to make sure he wasn't followed after destroying some neighboring shrine, or neither of you would be clearly correct and you would be assigned to reconstructing opposite ends of whatever structure was destroyed in the ensuing battle. There was one time your original's temper worked with Hidan's, instead of against; the mission was classified as a failure because we were supposed to start a war, not end it. There was a period of peace and calm after that, though. After Sasori was killed, Tobi became your new partner, and he was high-energy like you, so the next several months were hell for anyone who disliked constant bombing. I think you may have eventually grown to get along with him, though. Your battle with Sasuke went very well, with Tobi's help. He didn't feel the same way; I doubt he felt anything after you used that suicide technique against Sasuke. We knew Tobi was a bastard. I'm sorry for partnering your original with him."

_I'm probably going to have to explain who Tobi and Zetsu are, aren't I? That can be done later. _"Sasori. Your original turned himself into a puppet at the age of 15. How does one go about understanding someone like that? I certainly didn't. It was very difficult to figure out what kind of person you were, where to put you, so since you referred to your puppets as a kind of art and Deidara referred to his explosions in the same way, we partnered you together and hoped it would work out. It didn't work out nearly as well as your previous partnership with Orochimaru, but aside from constant bickering over the definition of art it worked well enough. Orochimaru was a former Akatsuki member who expressed a similar interest in making people immortal; this common interest was why you were partnered with him before he attacked Itachi and betrayed the organization. I never fully understood your obsession with time. Why turn yourself into a puppet to have more of it, then yell for Deidara to hurry up and not keep you waiting? He was strange to me. I didn't have any contact with him, except for issuing orders."

_Only two more. _Konan's heart squeezed. It was getting difficult to continue speaking. "Kakuzu. Your original… I understood him even less. In fact, I even disliked him personally, an honor reserved for very few people. He kept killing his partners, which necessitated finding new members until we heard of and managed to track down Hidan. Since I was more on the human side of operations, this was a pain to deal with. I did forgive you after this tendency led to our acquiring Hidan, but your overall personality grated on me. Treating yourself as powerful enough to complete missions alone offended me, and your anger at your partners for slowing you down also offended me. I think it reminded me of parts of myself I'd rather not discuss."

The last sentence might not have made it out, if it were not for Konan being all too aware of those parts. Her mind kept flickering past Hidan and onto worrying about what she would say after him, where to even begin. The pain from her hands clenching too tightly in her lap helped, as did the distracting starbursts of light from her eyes. Her eyelid muscles were starting to develop a deep ache. Her mind briefly ran away to worry about if she could give herself brain damage from this. It took some time to remember that she had a mission, and time was passing. "Hidan." Her voice came out wrong; it was weak and breathless. She soldiered on, despite the worrying feeling that her heart was beating against her throat and crushing her trachea. "Hidan. Your original…"

Memories whirled in her head. _Where do I start?_ "I wish I knew more of him. He was fascinating." She remembered Hidan's introduction to the group, their eyes meeting, equal fascination being returned. "We kept tabs on missing nins of B rank or above, as potential opponents and, rarely, potential assets. Your original gained a reputation for mysterious healing powers after a couple survivors reported seeing him with tremendous injuries during battle, only a few days before he was sighted again in seemingly perfect health. Kakuzu and some others were immediately sent out for recruiting purposes. He fought your original to a standstill, learning that your original was more than just a fast healer in the process. He was _required_ to join the Akatsuki after that, under pain of being cast in molten metal for all eternity. I doubt how well I could have gone through with that," she added as almost an afterthought. Something about him had seemed awfully absorbing, even after just one look. Probably lust. Could attraction _really_ have been strong enough to get in the way of her loyalties? Konan was unspeakably glad she never had to find out.

"His introduction caused some discord; it was common to hear complaints that he was too loud, too obnoxious, one was bad enough, the amount of time his prayers took was too long, etc. etc. We agreed that, beyond that superficial level, he was disturbing. Nagato never told me exactly how he was disturbing, but I could guess. Meetings of any kind with your original were kept to the bare minimum. He was never even told about the overall goal of the organization until long after he'd joined." Konan fell silent for some time.

"He never minded," she eventually whispered. "He prowled around, never complained about anything truly important. I remember the look in his eyes. He looked older than you do; you look around 8 years old, he looked around 13 or 14 at his youngest. Sarcasm, anger, his eyes never being fully open unless he was in battle… I told myself I was looking for complexity where there wasn't any. I didn't expect very much of him. I only expected him not to die. He's getting a less than welcome reception when I see him next." Her voice tried to be frosty, but didn't quite succeed. Konan knew well that most things she tried to do to him would be taken in a very different way, and anything he would really dislike, she was unwilling to do. The thought of trying to punish him filled her body with a good kind of tension. _Bad time, bad place. I should not be imagining such things. I really shouldn't. _Did that mean she was going to stop, though? _...Eventually. _Her thoughts sounded very sincere, totally, for sure.

She wracked her brain for anything more to say about him. How should she describe the way he tilted his head when he was listening, the different tones of sarcasm he employed, the way different types of anger could be told apart by his eyes? How could she describe those things? What else could she describe in order to prolong this point in time, hopefully to infinity?

Hidan picked up her hand and held it. The message was clear. _Get on with it. _Konan tried to squeeze his hand back, and found that she couldn't. Her muscles did not move. _Paralysis. _It was almost a relief, to be able to tell him that she honestly couldn't do it, with her whole body paralyzed there was no way she could talk about -

She remembered that one scene of her dream where Pain had pulled her from the pile of exploding tags, and a dam shuddered. Memories began to leak. _Lie down next to Yahiko and stay still. I'll take care of them. _More shuddering. _You will always be the leader of the Akatsuki...Yahiko. _It felt like she had already swallowed a lit signal flare and was currently trying to swallow another one. _Foolish. Peace is unattainable. War will last forever as long as this world exists. _That...**Bastard…**

Konan took a breath in time to avoid passing out, and began to speak.

"Nagato. You...we…" All the different forms of himself he had ever been lay spread before her, in her mind: Nagato fishing. Nagato sitting alone. Nagato laughing with Jiraiya sensei. Nagato saving her life. Nagato looking strong. Nagato looking lonely. Nagato with a dog. "Well...at this point, with the Akatsuki, you were -" Nagato looking hopefully at Yahiko. Nagato crouched on the ground, breathing heavily, just having killed two men without being fully aware of it.

_Oh gods. _"Perhaps I should start at the beginning."

She took a deep breath. It sent shivers up and down her body. Her eyes were starting to burn. "You walked into our hideout with a puppy." The last syllable cracked. All of that was _gone_, _broken, meaningless_ now. How could she ever be asked to speak about it? He had had meaning, and now he did not, and she was being asked to give him meaning again? To resurrect him, to make the past present? It couldn't be done! It couldn't. The ice was growing again, freezing all the water in her tear ducts. It just couldn't be done.

Hidan squeezed her hand again, with much effort. He was asking it of her, and he was… He was himself. And he had promised to hold her up when all the ice melted and the numbness that was holding her together disappeared, leaving her a tumbling pile of shards. Her heart was in shards already, everyone that had gone unmourned struggling to break free. They wanted to attend their funeral at last, but it would destroy her to let them. Hidan had promised her she would be okay.

"It was named Chibi." Her heart began to race, Konan gearing herself up to run for her life. She was going to escape her own collapse, or fall trying. "It saved you from starving to death." Her memories of Nagato were too vast, she couldn't let them out through her words alone. Yet, she had to try.

"You were almost nine years old, and an orphan, and too brave for anyone to handle. Except Yahiko. He was just as brave." _Ow! _"You learned a lot from Jiraiya sensei: how to be determined as well, how to be kind, how to be so, ridiculously strong. That was...I think sometime after Jiraiya sensei left, 13 or 14, I think that's when it changed. We're the same age. But before, you were quiet, so I thought of you as younger. Then, around that age, you'd grown and you seemed older than me…" Her throat closed. Her eyelids quivered. There was too much still to say, and she'd already left out almost everything.

"I'd never had a brother before," she uttered. Why was she bringing that up? She couldn't quite say. "You saved my life more times than I can count. You saved Yahiko all the time." _*the sound of a band saw sawing open her heart* _"We were the three of us." _What could we have been, besides together? Being apart like this is hell. _"Then, after _that day_ happened, you were the leader of the Akatsuki, which we'd started years before. Everyone else was gone. What the hell happened to all the other members?" Konan had never figured that out. "That made it easier, to change, to become something different. We forgot what peace or happiness was like. Everything seemed dark and meaningless. We tried making a different world." A wave of shame rolled over her. "But we never got past step one: destroy the current one."

_Yahiko… _Konan swallowed. The worst was yet to come. "I missed you. My brother." There was so much more left to say, so much more she missed that needed to be mourned. That feeling of being looked after, belonging, family, home… Of understanding… Her Nagato would have always known exactly what she was and what she could or couldn't do. He was strong and smart like that. Her big brother. Could someone like that ever really be gone?

Tears that stabbed like glass and filled the wound with molten lava boiled up from beneath her eyes and seethed across the delicate membranes of her eyelids. She'd thought she'd made some progress moving on. Apparently not.

She was going to fall down and lie there if she didn't keep going. Konan forced herself on. "We never actually had a funeral." Her eyelids broke open, releasing the burning water. She looked at the dull carpet through a blur. "_That day,_ you just fought, and then...then you used that technique, the Six Paths Jutsu, which controls bodies...and you said, '_You'll always be the leader of the Akatsuki...Yahiko.'_ It was almost like he was still there, except he was so pale and the jutsu made him look like he had piercings all over. His body only got to rest when you died, but then, I just laid you two to rest and prepared for battle. Still no funeral." Something dripped from her face. "Yahiko...you're the same. It's like nothing's happened, like you didn't die right in front of us, like I never...like you never… But that's a lie. I did lose the man I loved more than anything, and you don't get to lie to me!" Her chest froze. She couldn't breathe. Collapse or explode? Her chest was falling, dissolving into nothingness, but her arms and legs seethed with the desire to rip and tear everything to shreds.

Her vision narrowed, as if she was falling down a long tunnel. She remembered the tunnel from her dream, where the dead had gone. Jiraiya sensei, Yahiko, Nagato - her family. She'd either killed or stood by as all of them were taken, when none of them should have been. None of them. Was she worthy of being with them again?

Were they waiting?

Where did the portal in the basement lead to?

She choked, started to cough. The tunnel receded off into the distance. Konan felt herself slam into something. She was no longer falling. At first she thought it was a mortuary slab, but as her normal breathing resumed, it softened. It was warm. And, true to word, it seemed to be holding her up.

The world turned into a soft, dark cocoon.

.

**A/N: It's okay. Just sleep, and it'll all be better in the morning.**

***sniff* A word of completely unsolicited writing advice: Emotional scenes have to be written all at once. The scene with Yahiko and Nagato was written all at once, and so was the entire last half of this chapter with Konan. *sniff* **

**Surprise, lack of mourning isn't good for one's mental health. Who knew?**

**Have fun and stay safe, everyone.**


	38. Hope And Despair Together

**A/N: Trigger Warning for depression, trauma, and not-unfounded fears of suicide. If anyone reading this currently feels as though they can empathize with Madara when he says he is nobody and the world sucks and hope doesn't exist, stop reading. Right now. Don't come back until you feel better. I don't mean to hurt anyone just because I wanted to write a character with issues. **

**That said, this is rock bottom. Last chapter and this one are about as dark as it gets. Nobody's actually going to do anything drastic in this story. I like these characters, and therefore don't want anything terrible to happen to them. I even gave Original Hidan a way out of his supposed fate worse than death just because I wanted to. Everything really is going to be okay. Deep down, I've been forced to admit I'm something of an optimist.**

**.**

**Yahiko**

The door clicked softly as it closed behind Nagato, who wasn't aware of closing the door at all. He swallowed and leaned back against it, finally giving his head license to spin. Yahiko wiped at his eyes every two seconds with sleeves that were both too wet to do anything except spread water all around his face. Hidan gently lowered Konan's head to the bed next to him, and propped his scythe up between the bed and the side table. That done, he stayed sitting next to her, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her face.

Yahiko started raising the bottom of his shirt to wipe his eyes instead. At any other time, for any other reason, either Nagato or Hidan or both would have offered him a sleeve. Neither moved to help him now.

Nagato's head was still spinning. What was he to do? What should he do? Partial answers to those questions drifted past, whizzing in and out of his attention like circus gnats. He had a vague idea, then another, then another. He leaned back, putting more pressure on his shaking hands, and did nothing.

Yahiko gave up and let the tears drip down into his shirt. "I might be sick," he whispered.

Nagato tried to move out of the way, but couldn't muster enough attention to do so.

Yahiko was not sick. The heavy weight at the bottom of his stomach did a convincing impression of nausea, but was not it. His stomach twisted at the look on Konan's face. Despite having gotten as much as she had out, she did not look peaceful. Far from it. If he'd had to guess at the cause of her unconsciousness just from the look on her face, he might have guessed something along the lines of "medically induced coma." He felt, in his uncomfortably large heart, the enormity of what had been revealed so far. All that, and nobody had guessed any of it. What else must still be hidden?

Nagato whimpered. He was starting to recover enough to process what she had said more deeply. He could almost _see_ Yahiko's face as pale as she had described, and still. His mouth filled with water. He really _was_ going to be sick.

Yahiko gestured at her, asking a silent question. Hidan's brow furrowed. He had no way of even guessing what question Yahiko could be asking. His mind felt like it was tied to an invisible stake in the ground, and that stake was Konan.

Nagato stumbled out of the bathroom and leaned against the door again, this time sliding down to the ground. "How?" he asked. "Oh my god…"

Yahiko swallowed. "Is she...going to be okay?" _Why can't I think of a better question? Why? _

Hidan shrugged. His eyes looked distant, and talking seemed to be beyond his efforts for the moment. He rubbed his forehead between his eyes, visibly resisting sleep.

Nagato got to his feet. "Probably," he answered. "She's survived this far. Not just survived, but also made plans, and fought, and been kind to us. She's stronger than anyone; she has to have the strength to recover."

He turned his attention to Konan, and started shaking. "This isn't the first time her world's ended." Nagato's eyes began to fill with tears, even as they widened in awe. "I can't begin to imagine living through something so terrible. If you… I can't even say it. That would be the end of my world. I couldn't handle that at all."

Yahiko reached for his hand and squeezed in agreement. "I'm not brave enough to imagine it either," he whispered. "A terrorist organization? Oh...gods…" He couldn't imagine Nagato ever being something terrible. He couldn't imagine the Nagato he knew, with smile intact and a strong heart and sound mind, ever being angry or cold. It would be like the wreckage of a house collapsing, broken and rotted beams falling in and lying, still, in a pile of ruin. "It would be like you _died._"

Nagato nodded. "I would be. Because my world would be over, if you were pale and...stiff...and…" He gagged, but had nothing more for his stomach to reject. "I really would be dead. But she's alive, even though she loved you, so her world had to fall apart too. And then her world fell apart _again_ so now she's here, and who knows what happened in between." He shook his head. He couldn't speak of the other horrors she had described, but what did that matter? The fact that she hadn't just fallen down and given up at some point was too astonishing already.

Yahiko looked again at her face. It was still the furthest thing from peaceful, and peace was all Yahiko had ever really aimed for. His hand tightened on Nagato's. "I'm sorry."

Nagato looked at him, baffled. Hidan sensed a change and stopped smoothing Konan's hair back from her face, looked up at Yahiko instead. Yahiko made a move as if to reach out with his other hand, but stopped. Would it be a good idea? Nobody reassured him it would. _I don't need to, anyway. I can talk about this. _He swallowed and prepared what he had to say.

"I'm sorry, Konan." This part would have to be repeated when she was awake. "I'm sorry for all those jokes I made, and references, about my impending demise and sacrifices. I didn't take it seriously. You said your world is full of fighting, and I died, but I was stupid and didn't think about what that _meant_. I'm sorry."

He wiped at his nose. "From now on, I won't do that anymore. I'll take myself seriously, and I won't go running off to talk to a demon alone. I only just now thought of how scary that would have been, for _anyone._ I promise, I'll stay safe. I'll take extra training too, whatever it takes. I'll prove that I won't die again."

Yahiko sniffled and wiped at his nose again. His sleeves were in useless condition. He sniffled again to keep his nose in line, and looked sideways at Nagato. "She _has_ to get better. I don't like seeing people like that; she _has_ to. That means we have to fix her world. I can't undo anything, but I'll prove myself. I _will._"

Nagato nodded, unaware that he was doing so, or that he was beginning to smile. "I've never had a sister," he thought aloud. "If she wants to, I wouldn't mind trying to be a brother to her."

Yahiko turned back to Hidan. A warm feeling was blooming in his chest, spreading like a lotus in his heart. _Fix the world._ _Is this what destiny feels like? _No other goal had ever made him feel like this. Saving the world sounded hokey, but it felt _right._ And who knew what was possible, now that the world wasn't how they had thought it was? Who said he couldn't? At the least, he could save one world, and even if it was only one, that would be enough. Here, together, with his oldest friend and another just as true, they could do anything. Even if that anything was to pick Konan back up, hold her, keep her warm, and heal her back together again.

Hidan blinked. The imaginary light he saw was dazzling. It was almost hard to look at. Nagato could have sworn he actually saw a glow coming from Yahiko's eyes and skin.

"Hidan," Yahiko began. Though gentle, his voice would be obeyed without question. "Take us into town tomorrow. Get us cloaks like you have, like she has."

Hidan blinked some more. "Y-yeah." He yawned. He wasn't sure how much more he could take of feeling. His heart was tired.

Yahiko carefully let go of Nagato's hand. He gathered himself as much as he could, then approached Hidan. Softly, he covered Hidan's cheek with his hand, tilting Hidan's head up to look him in the eyes.

The uplifting feelings did more for Hidan than an IV of cocaine. His eyes opened wider, focusing on Yahiko's face. Hope shone through them. He felt some great warm flower inside as well, although, since he was still cradling Konan's head, the imaginary flower floated above a void. But that was alright, because Yahiko had said they could close the void, and Hidan could now see why he was so certain. It felt like he was remembering something already past, that the void was already filled with something cool and soothing. Hidan still desired rest, but he was no longer tired. He could go on as long as he was needed. He reached up to cover Yahiko's hand and nodded. All was well.

Yahiko took his hand back and straightened up, looking very proud. He looked at Konan once more, biting his lip. Should he? Could he? Hidan nodded.

Yahiko sat down on her other side and held Konan's hand. Maybe, wherever she was, she could feel it. _I can see it,_ he realized. _I can see how she and I could have been together. When she's asleep like this, she looks so much more peaceful, so welcoming. In another life, I could have been with her. _"This explains a lot about why I've never had a girlfriend," he mused. "Other Me wouldn't have been with anyone else. Having her subtracted from my memories leaves nobody."

_Only in another life. She's too different now. _That was a very sad thought. Yahiko squeezed her hand. "I promise. I'll undo the subtraction too. You're not gone, not now. It's alright." _How badly must that hurt, to be subtracted from everyone you ever knew? _His heart ached. He squeezed her hand and got up silently. Nagato opened the door, and they left her in peace and quiet. The door shut with barely a sound. Yahiko waved down the hall to his room, where he probably had some tissues he could use.

Nagato held his hand, correctly figuring that Yahiko wouldn't mind. That was a bittersweet thought. On the one hand, it felt good to hold Yahiko's hand. On the other, it didn't mean anything. Yahiko would never mind, because holding anyone's hand was nothing special. Sometimes Nagato felt like he wanted to be special and outstanding in some way, to be able to communicate to Yahiko how much holding hands meant to _him. _He almost wanted Yahiko to not give his hand so freely. Almost.

On a related note… "That must have been nice."

"What?"

"Helping Hidan like that while he's in female form. Anyone else would get ideas." Nagato knew better than to think that such a gesture could be special. Not coming from Yahiko. Anybody else would get ideas, but not Nagato. He was forever cursed to have no illusions about how platonic most of Yahiko's actions really were.

"Oh…" Yahiko only just then realized that. "Yeah, maybe someone else would've. I didn't. If it was nice, I couldn't tell. Things like that get drowned out, so it would be really hard for me to know. Maybe it _was_ nice." He didn't really want to think about Hidan like that, though. "So, how are you?"

They stopped outside Yahiko's door. Nagato released Yahiko's hand, briefly mourned, and shrugged. "I'm going to have nightmares for the next month," he admitted. "Zombie You'll be chasing me down, or worse, just _looking_ at me. Always looking. Always judging." Nagato fervently hoped talking about nightmares in real life dealt with them, somehow. Otherwise, he'd just filmed a whole horror movie for himself.

Yahiko forced out a laugh. "Me too, probably. Maybe about you, or about Konan. You'll be ordering my death for reasons I can't explain, or she'll be, I don't know, jumping off a cliff." As soon as the last syllable left his mouth, Yahiko knew immediately that he should not have added the second part. _Hooray, I'm unique. I get to know exactly what I'm dreaming about in advance. _He shivered.

Nagato winced. "Honestly, after everything we've been through, all in the space of a _week,_ I think everyone's having nightmares. It's only reasonable. I remember hearing the incubus' screams in one of my dreams just last night, from after she poured salt over him. We need _time._"

Yahiko had to agree with that. "You think that counts as traumatic?"

"I'll bet you the entire contents of my wallet right now that nobody's going to be touching Sasori without him flinching for the next week, at least."

Yahiko considered this problem. "Do you think after a week, anyone'll be willing to start group therapy sessions?"

"No. I think anyone will be willing, not after a week, but after we find someone else." Nagato explained, "We fought as a group; we were all there. Commiseration's great, but somebody, _anybody_ else who isn't themselves having nightmares would be better. Maybe those other people that are also ninjas could help."

"That guy who shouldn't be here, like me," Yahiko recalled. "You're right. I _really _want to talk to him now. Oh, I'm going to take for_ever_ to get to sleep now."

"Me too," Nagato acknowledged. "Me too."

Talking about it may not help the nightmares themselves, he thought, but it was doing a lot to help everything else. Humor makes a great nightcap. Nagato considered putting that on a bumper sticker.

**Konan**

Meanwhile, Hidan had returned to the land of the exhausted. It wasn't a physical exhaustion that he could just sleep off. It was a mental exhaustion, so that Hidan found his thoughts dipping down into pessimism whenever he bothered to notice, and he couldn't steer them back up. It was an emotional exhaustion, so that he couldn't have cheered himself up, even if he had possessed the slightest inclination to try. Trying was impossible. Motivation did not exist. He sat there, with his perfectly healthy and well-functioning body, ruminating on how he could not, would not, use it for anything. Wasn't that a great fuckin' irony? Only a person in no need of help could have the ability to try. As soon as he needed to try to help himself, the ability to try was gone. Hidan felt a glimmer of kinship with catatonic patients. Sitting here forever was a possibility; his body felt entirely filled with some kind of liquid sludge. Mud, or more likely, liquid concrete. It was heavy. Hidan felt numb, like every nerve in his body had been removed. That would explain the paralysis.

Though his thoughts dragged, at least they moved. Maybe he could use his mind. Hidan felt very clearly that he could not move himself, so he remembered Yahiko. Yahiko was strong and capable of moving things. Hidan imagined Yahiko sitting with him, using those healing powers on his missing nerves. Just like that, Hidan regained the ability to move his arm. He scratched his head, more than content to pretend it was Yahiko helping him instead of him helping himself. If he thought the latter, it wouldn't work because he knew he couldn't do anything.

Konan took a deeper than usual breath. Hidan congratulated himself on having had the foresight to use the last of Yahiko's provided strength to lift Konan up and hold her against his side. She leaned on him now, her head on his shoulder. It was very nice. It might have been romantic, if not for the obvious problem with that idea.

She yawned, and opened her eyes. Gazing down at the carpet, she observed that she was somewhere safe and warm. Did she have to get up? A ninja, she remembered Jiraiya sensei saying, is one who endures. Jiraiya sensei's wisdom hadn't worked so well lately. Who else had wisdom she could use? She recalled Hidan's wisdom. It had worked much better. _Screw enduring. I don't want to, so fuck off. _She felt kilometers better already, just being able to say that. She laughed to herself. The idea of having to endure was itself a thing to endure. She felt very free now.

That laugh echoed in emptiness, and Konan realized that it didn't matter if she chose to endure or not. The simple fact was that there was nothing to endure with. The softness and warmth of her current position was good, because she was stuck with it. The world was too heavy. _Just...fuck off._ She thought this at the world now. It helped, but not as much as someone to lift the world off her would have.

Hidan sighed next to her. _Of course. _What else could it be? She could only be with this Hidan who was not quite Hidan. Konan mustered the strength to turn just slightly and wrap her arms around him. She wanted to just dive into him and stay there, suspended forever in wild currents. He tightened his arm around her. If there was nothing else, there was him.

Some last, subterranean part of the dam cracked open. A little trickle of gratitude sprung from it, containing all the power of a thousand breakdowns like the one she just remembered having. Her breath shook. Hidan was _here,_ and that mattered. It mattered so much.

"They're gone," she realized. She had seen the clones as strangers once, when they had been horrified at her. But then the three that mattered most had come for her, and she'd let herself believe otherwise. It had felt good to believe they were, or could be, at least a little of who she remembered. But it wasn't reality. They were all gone. Or was it she who was gone? _Subtraction. _That word had been used to describe it somewhere. It was terribly accurate. She was one person, and now she was subtracted, and there was nothing.

Something seemed wrong with that logic. Konan remembered that she still existed. So one minus one did not equal zero? She was very confused.

"They don't wanna be," murmured a voice of wisdom. "He promised that you wouldn't be subtracted, that you'd come back. They wanna rebuild your world. So hold still, things are better."

From the little trickle of gratitude came strength. The ability to feel ridiculous came back. "Oh gods," she whispered. "Did that happen in front of everyone?"

"Yep."

"I'm not much of a leader now, then. Pathetic." She supposed it was inevitable. No king can rule forever, and all that. At least she'd told Nagato. This version wasn't so much of a leader, but if he and Yahiko were together, it might work.

"What ya talkin' about?" Hidan's words, she noticed, sounded lazy. He spoke like someone who was aiming to minimize the number of syllables he had to pronounce. He sounded tired. "Your respect is way up. They had no idea you had family, or liked him, or any a that."

Why should that make a difference? She'd run to the end of her rope. That was it; it was all over for her. "What do you mean?"

"They're amazed at how strong you are," she heard. _That can't be right._ "Having legit reasons to be unstable and such is more respectable than being in that condition because you just, I don't know, couldn't bother holding together."

"I had a breakdown in front of everyone," she insisted. That was not a thing someone fit for leadership did. It was weakness.

"So? Weakness is being all messed up for no reason. You have like all the reasons, and you still talk and shit. That's strong. Besides, it helps take things down a notch. Easier to be your buddies if they can freakin' do things for ya. If they couldn't, it'd be like being under your command, like you were supreme lord admiral or whoever. You can't be buddies with a supreme lord admiral. Buddies get more respect, and it's just easier."

_What? _A pit opened up beneath Konan's thoughts. She spent the next five minutes, at least, wallowing in it. _What? Friends? _Not _under command? _The Akatsuki? That didn't make any sense. _We work together. An organization. Work = command. _They wanted to have some organization, right? Someone had to be in charge. Who was in charge, if they didn't want her to be? _Organization = command. One - one = zero._ Not only was the world heavy, it was also completely strange. Was red going to be blue next?

She went to the tremendous effort of giving up and snuggled into Hidan's shoulder. "You?" There were so many questions she could be asking that Konan didn't actually know which one she was asking first.

"Yeah."

"Stay."

"Yep."

"..."

"..."

The ability to feel pain came back. Konan closed her eyes and took it. It felt like needles. "Who promised that?" she finally remembered to ask.

"Sunshine did." Hidan shook her back and forth for attention and looked at her. "It was fucking _awesome_. He said this whole inspirational thing about how he's sorry for making jokes and running off, and he won't do that anymore. Oh, him and Redhead want to get cloaks, just so you know. And Redhead said he would not mind having a sister, not at all. Um...he'll sign up for more training too, so you can know he won't die and shit. And he _totally gets_ why he's never had a girlfriend now."

Hidan tried to remember if there was anything else to tell her about. No, that was pretty much it. He turned his attention to other matters. "You do know we want to help, right?"

Konan was still unable to decide how she felt about this version of Nagato wanting to be her brother. _Did I even hear that correctly? _"I'm sorry?"

"The three of us," Hidan prompted. "Like before, when we found ya on the roof. We promised to help you. We want to. And I'm glad you'll let me, even if you forgot they also want to, because I gotta burst your bubble here." His voice took on the universal tone of tough love. "It's always been freakin' obvious that you needed it. Literally everyone knew there's something off in here." He gently pressed a finger to her forehead. "The only question anyone's ever had is, is it bad enough and unfixable enough to abandon ship, or not? If we needed to think you were strong and mighty enough to be the big boss or whatever, you wouldn't have been. Luckily for you, we're not a bunch of terrorists and psychopaths. Now, you want help, or not?"

His eyes were filled with expectations. They looked at her with certainty that his question was only a formality, that of course she would accept her radically altered position in a group full of people she didn't actually know, start all over again. Her heartbeat thrummed in her ears. Most of her wanted to say, _I can't start again like that. _As if anything Hidan said was even possible. What good was it wanting to help, if nobody could? It would be better for them not to waste their time.

Hidan propped her up as he turned sideways, then wrapped her in a proper hug. "Relax," he ordered. "You're very much overruled anyway." He rubbed her back, and the memory of the last time he had done that made her wince and hold back tears. Gods above, this didn't make any sense. Why?

"Why?"

"Hmm." Hidan kept rubbing her back. "Wrong question. I've always said there's only two kinds of actions: the kind you need a reason to do, and the kind you need a reason not to do. I don't have any choice, and for Sunshine and Redhead, it's just what they do. You'd need to give one honker of a reason why not, or else we will. We help people."

"I'm not a person." Konan was mildly surprised to hear herself say that. But it was true, wasn't it? She'd been subtracted. Besides, she had little practice being a person in her own right. _Who am I without them? _After a week, she could say: Nothing human.

Hidan drew back and looked her in the eyes. "You are _not_ an unperson. Not true. Lie. You hate lies, right?" He nodded decisively. "That is one."

_Is it? _Yet, it felt so true. _He should know. Or should I? Do I know what's truth and what's a lie? _That was horrifying, and depressing (or already depressed), and tiring. She didn't want to be horrified; she wanted to be warm again. _I'm pathetic now, reduced to curling up like a little girl. _She wasn't much of a person, and according to Jiraiya sensei, she wasn't a shinobi either. _I'm not really anything. _Gods, Tobi/Madara/Whoever was _right._ It was possible to be nothing at all.

Though, she did have to admire his ability to act despite knowing that. The muddy feeling was back, and it was difficult to understand how he could have managed to move, never mind make plans to shape worlds. Shaping worlds wasn't in the cards for her, apparently.

Hidan groaned and hugged her again. "Oh, shitttt," he moaned. "How does this work?"

"What?"

"This thing," Hidan clarified. "Are you gonna go back to normal feelings? How long'll that take? How does this usually go?"

"What do you mean? My mood? Why would I have any idea?" She'd never been given any reason to track such a thing. She was a shinobi. Who paid attention to things like that? And why would Hidan assume there was something to track? Moods didn't have patterns. Except for...

"Well," she corrected herself, "there is one thing I've been paying attention to." _Ever since it destroyed my world._ "As you know, every so often I take some opportunity, even an extremely minor one, to jettison difficult feelings and refuse to deal with them. I stop caring. I always return to caring, to trying to advance my position in life, but each time I've undone all the progress I made before. I vow not to give up again, but it never sticks. I don't really want it to. It's very easy to do anything I want when I don't care if I live or die. I can't tell whether I dread it or look forward to it. I seem to spend a couple months, on average, between those feelings."

"What about _this_?" Hidan asked.

"This?"

"Uh, yeah. The rebound period? The time where you're stuck going over the stupid shit you did last time? Feeling worse than normal?" Hidan sounded completely flummoxed by her confusion. "You have to notice something that feels worse than normal, right?"

Konan was also completely flummoxed. "This isn't much worse than normal. The only difference is that I'm physically tired. I'll be fine after a few nights of sleep."

Hidan groaned and fell over onto the bed, pulling Konan down with him. "_Fuckity._" He looked at her, clearly as exhausted as she was. "Sorry. I'd have something nice to say if we were around other people. But I don't, because we're not, and that's just… When people say that, it's… Ah, just fucking too much to deal with. I can't." He sniffled and started to cry. "See, this is why you're strong," he forced out through whimpers. "Anyone who can deal with this kind of shit and do stuff is strong. Really fuckin' strong. I'm fucking impressed."

Konan reached up and silently wiped away the tears he missed in his lackluster wiping. _He can't take feeling like this? _Were these feelings really abnormal? Surely everyone felt tired sometimes. A shinobi was someone who persevered through that. They were all shinobi; he should be able to handle the occasional lack of motivation.

Hidan sniffled some more. "It felt so much better when Sunshine was here," he whispered. "Like he was glowing. I just wanna lie here now."

His stomach quietly complained. "I'll see what we have," Konan whispered. She brushed his hair behind his ear and stood up, praying that she would meet nobody else.

She moved like a frozen shadow through the halls. _In a way, this feels kind of nice. _There were a few things in the fridge. _I may be nothing in particular, but I can bring food and such to people like him. Even if,_ she acknowledged sadly, _I am the cause of his pain. _That wasn't new. When wasn't she the cause of somebody's pain? Konan remembered the first Before, before she had lost her parents. _Even then. _But she could bring food to Hidan, so she did.

His spirits were partially revived when she returned. He sat cross-legged on the bed, staring down at the carpet. He looked up upon her return. "So," he began. "About the plan I outlined for how it would hopefully go down earlier… I mentioned introductions. We never got to that part."

"Just as well," Konan said as she laid the sandwich she'd made on Hidan's lap. "How would I introduce myself? I have nothing to say."

"Yeah. We'll not, then." He looked deeply disturbed, his eyes clouded over. What was he thinking?

He finished his lackluster eating and sat for a few moments, quiet. Konan wondered if she should be worried. "Hidan?"

"Do you want company tonight?" he asked in return. "I don't have to go back to my room."

Konan blinked. That was...a strange offer. The room wasn't meant for multiple people. He could wrap himself in blankets on the floor, or… No, that would entirely defeat his stated purpose. He must mean to share the bed.

_What is there to complain about? I've lain in his arms in the back of a truck before. He is good looking, but he's not like his original. He's off-limits. _Her body was on board with that, miracle of miracles. And everyone else seemed to take their closeness for granted. And Konan really didn't want to be alone, for this one night at least.

"Thank you." The little trickle of gratitude stung like extremely potent medicine always does. "I would like that very much."

.

**A/N: My method is that I finish the chapter, go to the beginning and write the first note, reread the entire chapter looking for typos, then write the end note when I'm done. I generally have a strong reaction to what I'm writing, but almost no reaction to what I read. As a result, the first note was written while under the influence of a depressed headspace, but now that I've read the chapter again, I find my previous reaction overblown and can't help but wonder if I'm exaggerating. It doesn't look that bad now. I can never tell which is accurate and which is false. Feel free to review and tell me what the first impression is like from a reader's perspective. **

**If anyone wonders why I always say Tobi/Madara/Whoever instead of just calling him Madara, it's because I see his alternate identities as separate characters, so I will refer to them as such even if it's clunky. The same applies to Pain, Nagato, and Yahiko. They are different characters. **

**Hope you enjoy, and have an excellent week!**


	39. Emergence

**A/N: I have a sudden desire to spend the next hour or so reading HP Lovecraft. Is there any Akatsuki member from the show's current time who doesn't inspire that?**

**Regarding today's chapter title: it is deeply inadequate. Picture something enormous, like the Red Death from How to Train Your Dragon, or anything else of a similar magnitude, reaching up. A giant foot appears from nowhere, and giant claws shred the stone they land on. The light from glowing lava is extinguished as something fills the volcano's central chamber. The darkness is heavy and rising. The volcano groans, and its sides are insufficient to contain the huge mass forcing itself out...**

**That's the kind of emergence this chapter was named for. **

**.**

**Hidan**

_He couldn't remember. Why couldn't he remember?_

_Hidan checked his ropes again. He had no idea why; he'd never done rope climbing before in his life. He had no idea what ropes did what. Still he checked. It was a thing to be doing while he lost his mind on the side of this mountaintop, alone. He tried to remember why he was climbing this thing while he was at it._

_His arms and legs were weak and getting weaker. Still Hidan checked the ropes, instead of doing anything constructive like use the last of his energy to not fall. His grip slipped. Hidan twisted to reach out for the mountain, but it was miles away. And the ropes were loose, after all his checking! Why hadn't he seen they were loose?_

_Hidan's heart beat against his chest so hard that his throat hurt. It was trying to kill him, or at least it felt like it. Hidan tried to tear open the suit he was suddenly wearing, remove the collar that was choking him, but his hands got tangled in the fabric and could not seen to get enough of a grip for anything. _

_There was a bird. It was beautiful. It was so beautiful that it had to be the Magic Bird which lived on top of the mountain. Sure enough, he saw ladybugs crawl out from under its feathers to clean its wings. Hidan needed to get that bird's help. He needed to…_

_Not die, first of all. Hidan suddenly remembered to pull the cord of his parachute, and he did so just as he saw the first of the zombies moving in for the kill. _You asshole! Why'd you pull the parachute? _he screamed at himself as he tried to cut the line. It was no use. He fell so softly that he might have been lowered on a giant feather pillow. The parachute had feathers, actually. He was. Hidan wanted this to hurt. He ought to get to the ground quickly before the zombies came, he wanted to get there at fucking Mach 9, but the giant pillowchute wouldn't let him. He scratched at his skin, trying to make it hurt enough to beat the zombies. _

_There was a scream as he ran someone over. The zombies tore away the pillowchute, freeing Hidan to run back and check. There, on the ground, was something utterly crushed, trampled, split open so that it was barely possible to identify it as human. It was still oozing blood from a grisly head wound. _

_Hidan looked again, and saw it wasn't blood. It was hair. He fell to his knees. It was all his fault. If it wasn't for him and that giant bird who'd given him the parachute, Nagato would still be alive. Hidan felt a zombie behind him. He bent forward over Nagato's ruined body, waiting for it to bite. It was what he deserved._

_Huh? Nagato held something in his ruined hand that Hidan hadn't noticed before. It looked like a remote. Hidan screamed and fell backwards, scrambling on useless arms and legs to get away from this, this, horrible thing! Hidan, and everything else, was now on fire. Hidan had been too late to stop Nagato from getting the bombs. Why the fucking shrieking lunasalts was Nagato getting bombs?! _What's happening?! Why don't I remember? _Hidan tried to remember what was going on. What was going on? What was true and what was false? He tried to look past somebody to see the book he was in. He strained to his fullest, pressed himself to the ground, and lunged to either side as far as he could. It didn't work; no matter which direction he tried to peek in, Hidan couldn't see which page of the story he was on, or even the chapter. What were his lines?!_

_Kakuzu drove up with a truck of refrigerators. "Sign here," he read off from a note on his forearm. He looked expectantly at Hidan. Hidan's heart was trying to kill him even more badly. What was his line?!_

_Itachi shoved a paper under his nose. Hidan tried to read it without Kakuzu seeing. "Best of luck," he read. "Hope you get to the shark safely with no leakage."_

_Kakuzu rolled his eyes. Hidan cringed. He'd gotten drunk with Nagato the night before, okay? And Nagato was dead now, so he wasn't going to regret that. Kakuzu drove away without further comment. _

_Hidan turned to thank Itachi, but Itachi wasn't there. A pile of giant carnivorous ants was. The Ground Birds carried them in their feathers for cleaning purposes, Hidan knew. The pile rushed forward at him, and Hidan's heart strained to make the death blow as the ants invaded Hidan's body. They were everywhere, tearing him to pieces and swarming into his nose, mouth, and ears. Hidan's eyes burned with ants squeezing in between his eyeballs and sockets. He was in Hell. He'd let the zombie bite him, and now he was dead and in Hell. Hidan tried to accept his eternal punishment even as his nostrils stretched wider than should be physically possible, accommodating ever growing numbers of ants. _

_Sometime later, the ants were gone and Hidan stared up at an angel. His face was hidden by the clipboard he held, but Hidan could see the set of his shoulders and hear the occasional disapproving "Hmm…" and even more disapproving "Mm-mm" as the angel made notes on the clipboard. Hidan summoned up all of his remaining strength and generated the most piteous whimper imaginable. _

_The angel lowered the clipboard. He wore a solid black cloak and a spiky orange hairstyle. He looked stern and disapproving at first, but smiled politely at Hidan. "Hello," he said. "We're auditing the place."_

_The angel gestured out with his arm at the rest of his team. There was a fat guy, a guy with long hair, a guy with two ponytails (but the front one covered the opposite side of his face from Deidara), a bald guy, a rugged-looking guy with another spiky orange hairstyle who was currently liberating squirrels, and a stick figure in a black hat. They all wore regulation black cloaks, and all had orange hairstyles, except of course for the bald one and the one with a hat. _

_Hidan looked up at the sound of pencil scratching against paper. "If you require legal counsel, your court-appointed attorney should be along shortly." The angel moved on. _

_Hidan looked to his left. A giant carnivorous ant was on his shoulder , looking at him. It waved its antennae at him. Hidan managed a weak wave. "Um, hi."_

Several minutes later, Hidan cracked open his eyes to find out why the room was so hot, and why his heart was trying to murder him. He threw off the covers, remembering too late that they were the only thing covering his chest, and he was in female form. It didn't matter; he rolled off the bed and crouched on the floor, breathing hard. The heat seemed to pour off his skin, but despite that, he was shivering.

The blankets rustled behind him. "Hidan?" asked a worried sounding voice. Hidan remembered he'd stayed in Konan's room to comfort her. "Are you all right?"

"It's alright, I'm fine. I dreamed about lawyers, that's all." Hidan's breath was starting to edge back under his control, and his heart was calming down. He stood up with great effort, and slowly stumbled in the direction of the bed, falling into it when his legs hit the side. "And zombies. It's okay though."

"Zombies." Konan sounded like she was reading very much into that. "Was Yahiko there?"

Hidan tried to remember. "He might've been a lawyer. Why?"

Konan tilted her head. "He was a lawyer in the middle of a zombie infestation?"

Hidan shook his head. "No, no. It was _shitty_, like I was having every nightmare at the same time. I was falling, and zombies, and I forgot my lines, and something painful, and then lawyers. My body wasn't working right the whole time, and the lawyers did not look happy." At least, he thought they didn't. He seemed to remember displeased sounds and grim, dutiful looks. Hidan shivered and thanked whoever that he'd never been in legal trouble. Lawyers sounded _scary_.

Konan laid a hand on his shoulder, guiding him back to bed. It was then that Hidan realized what he had said. "Oh. Every nightmare at the same time. _Shit._"

He laid down and dragged the covers back over himself, sighing. An overwhelmed feeling rose in him, and his eyes started to leak. These weren't the kind of nightmares he could handle. He couldn't fix everyone's problems. All he could do was try to get back to sleep. That was all he could realistically do, when every instinct he had screamed at him to make the bad signals go away. Was this what it felt like to be outmatched? He had only ever felt this way once before in his entire memory.

"Hey, Konan?" he asked through sniffles.

"Yes?"

"Hi - history time." Hidan caught his breathing and brought it back under control. "20 years ago-ish, there was a devastating thing that happened. It's called 9/11, after the date it happened on. It was an attack against the whole country, so it rattled everyone in the whole country."

He shivered, cold sweat beading on his skin. "It was the worst fucking month of my life, the month after that. Maybe more than a month. It hurt so bad, I can hardly remember anything except agony. I spent that whole time hiding as far as I could from everyone, but I couldn't get far enough. Even in the middle of the forest, the cumulative noise was just fucking too much. I didn't see anyone except Kakuzu, who made sure I didn't literally die, but it was like… _So much fucking noise._

"And I couldn't do anything. _Everyone_, a _whole country,_ screaming to their gods for like months on fucking end. That's how rattled I mean." He shivered horribly, shaking the whole bed. "And that's the only other time I couldn't do anything." Hidan resumed his half terrified, half hurt crying. Mostly terrified.

Konan said nothing. What could she say? She lay down and closed her eyes, praying not to fall asleep. If she fell asleep, she knew the enormity of what she'd done, how much she had hurt everyone, would take a physical form and chase her endlessly. Sometime during her so far sleepless night, Konan had realized something for the first time, and furthermore, she had realized that it was the first time she was even thinking of it. She was thinking of how happy and carefree the clones had looked, before she met them. Why had she never thought of their happiness before? And worse, why did Hidan have to pay for what was rightfully her sin?

Hidan drew in a deep, trembling breath. "Ow." Something inside him hurt, not in a dull achy way like everything else hurt, but in a sharp twinge. That sharp twinge awakened his senses, reminded him of reality's existence. "Hurts." It went away, as all sharp twinges do. _As all things do. _He hadn't forgotten that, had he? No, Hidan decided, it was not he who had forgotten.

"Konan?"

She wedged one eye open. The chances that she could do whatever he would ask were low, but it was the least she could do to try. She cursed herself for not having the energy now to attempt an apology. She couldn't even take the first step to earning forgiveness. The thought (it couldn't be a hope, she shouldn't hope for that) that he might give it to her anyway was of little consolation.

Hidan raised his hand and settled it on her cheek, began to trace the curve of her brow. His hand changed as he did so. It became a little larger, warmer, heavier. Konan sighed involuntarily. For all the similarities, there were real differences between his male and female forms. In female form, he was good to sit with and commiserate. That wasn't what she needed or wanted now. The hand currently tracing her jawline was the hand of a protector, someone who could fend off terrible things and give her a moment of rest. It was also pleasant in its own way.

His hand stopped, and lay warm and solid against her cheek. Even in the darkness, she thought she could see, faintly, his eyes looking into hers. Hidan took a deep breath. This may blow up in his face, but no matter what, he had to try.

"Talk to me," he asked of her.

That was a hard one. Hadn't she done enough talking already? But because he asked, she would try. She nodded.

Hidan tried to think of something easy. "Talk to me about...something good. That guy you mentioned taught you guys. What's his name?"

"Jiraiya sensei." Konan was surprised at how easy it was to open her mouth and speak of him. Alone, in the dark, with nobody to overhear, her heart beat with the sudden desire to talk about and confess _everything_. The desire brought up memories of Yahiko. He was the only person she'd ever shared hushed whispers with before, in quiet and solitude. Strangely enough, this memory only increased her desire.

The first memory of Jiraiya sensei to float up in her mind was one of the strangest. "He was powerful, a Sage. He'd learned from the toads, so he called himself the Toad Sage. He made us dress in frog costumes once." She giggled. The warm hand on her cheek felt amused too. How she knew that, she couldn't have said. "The others looked adorable in their little frog costumes. Sensei just looked...different. It hid his huge, white ponytail, and the green clashed with the red clothes he usually wore. It didn't look right on him. Yahiko wore it well, though." She took a sudden breath, which hissed between her teeth. Speaking of this was bittersweet. Bitter, because such small and personal memories were supposed to be shared with those closest to her heart, and they weren't. Sweet, because they were supposed to be shared, and having any other person know this part of her history took a weight off Konan's heart. She hadn't realized how vast the burden of carrying their shared past all by herself was.

She continued sharing everything she could think of about Jiraiya sensei. The way he had made them grilled fish, and how good it had tasted after so long of stealing bread to survive. The way he hung up their clothes to dry, and gave them sleeping spaces of their own, and required them to be asleep at certain times. They had made places to sleep on their own before and kept a somewhat normal sleep schedule, but having someone require it made it different. Nagato confided at some point that Yahiko had spent the first week crying quietly every night. Nagato also confided at some much later point that he'd silently joined in after a while.

She told Hidan about training, which had been simultaneously surprising and familiar and terrifying and amazing. She told Hidan about their first successful defense against hostile ninja, when Jiraiya sensei had first seen Nagato's Rinnegan. Konan spent the next several minutes silent and drawing strength from Hidan's warm hand. The memory of how it had all started with her needing protection was bitter and poisonous. Could Hidan make it less noxious? After a few minutes of recovery, she told him of that part of the incident. Hidan exhaled slowly, covering her face with warm air that smelled of meat and sweet things. It was...she didn't know what it was. But she did continue talking without having to draw more strength from his hand.

She burst out quietly guffawing when she tried to tell Hidan about Jiraiya sensei's not-so-good attempt to teach them something about contact with the opposite sex when they were 11. It was ironic, she told Hidan. He probably could have told them any number of esoteric, perverse, or otherwise unusual things, but when he tried to be serious and stick to the basics, he could barely manage to get a word out. He'd spent the whole attempted talk with a red face. Konan had slipped her teammates notes asking for a secret meeting when they were supposed to be training on their own, and there she had told them what she knew of how animals mated, adding in reasonable thoughts based on what she already knew and what Jiraiya sensei had mentioned. This was much less embarrassing and substantially more effective than what Sensei had tried. The ball of noxious material in her chest broke up and dissolved away. She had never remembered this before. So, even back then, had she been more than a little girl in need of saving? It was amazing to consider.

Hidan chuckled while Konan reconsidered her entire perspective on herself. "Hey," he started. "My turn?"

"Alright."

"I'll start at the beginning." Hidan sighed and brushed her hair back while he remembered. "My first memory ever is Kakuzu's face. I was curled up, I think. Like a little scared ball. I don't know if I was scared, or...whatever. Either way, there was this hand on my shoulder all of a sudden. Feeling that was like waking up from a dream. Like your mind just goes Snap!, and bam, it's aware of the outside world, and everything that your mind was making up for itself before just disappears, like that. So I can't really remember before, but I remember _that_, and as soon as I felt it I looked up and there was Kakuzu. He musta been concerned, not that he would admit to it. Or, maybe he would. I was eight and curled up with my head in my knees on the side of a road, after all. No shame admitting you're concerned about something like that."

Hidan smirked. "He got a whole fuckload more than he was asking for, anyway. He asked me some basic concerned questions, like why was I on the side of the road, was anything seriously wrong, where were my parents. We pretty well established that I had to be some kind of runaway or something, and he offered to take me into town to maybe visit the police and get me returned. I...bit his arm. I did. Really, really hard. I don't even remember doing it. I just remember having my teeth in his arm, and feeling like I didn't want him to get anything sorted out. I managed to convince him not to do that, and somehow, don't ask me fucking how, I managed to get him to let me crash at his place."

"This Kakuzu seems to be kinder than the one I remember," Konan said.

Hidan rolled his eyes, snorting dismissively as well so Konan got the message. "It's really hard to be like your crew in this world, okay? The expectations are all different. Someone who acted all cold and unfriendly would stick out like a sore thumb in a room of quadruple amputees. Just can't be that here.

"So yeah, he probably didn't want to, but niceness lessons stick with you, so he did just because. It was pretty great." Hidan went silent.

Konan felt like she knew that kind of silence, which was puzzling. Why would Hidan need to draw strength from her? She snuck a hand out from under the covers and, carefully maneuvering around Hidan's arm, put her hand against the side of his face. After she brushed behind his ear a few times, his ear flicked, and he started to speak again.

"It was...fuck. I can't figure out how to describe it." Hidan chewed the inside of his cheek. "It was like...like something completely new. Sleeping on his couch with a blanket and everything felt weird, and kind of different, and I don't think I'd felt like that before?" He groaned. "You know how lying in bed feels when you're just coming out of sleep, and how it feels totally different when you're really awake? Like _that_, somehow. I, um. I cried." His face tightened, in what Konan imagined was a defensive look. "I don't know fucking why. Something from before, maybe."

Konan's breath took a sudden hitch. Hidan heard. "Whazzit?"

"Before." That word was acquiring more and more meaning with each day. "You have a Before too. I didn't piece that together until just now."

"A Before?" Hidan queried.

"Yes." Konan explained, "Ever since I arrived here I've thought in terms of Befores. There are dividing lines in life, moments that split everything into Before and After. I have...3 Befores. I have Before my parents were killed, Before Yahiko died, and now Before I died." She realized she had started petting Hidan's hair, and elected not to stop. "The three of us...we were apart. We had that experience in childhood, that nobody else did.

"But you… You've had one too." It didn't feel as different as she expected to acknowledge this aloud. Had she always known they had a connection, and not known that she knew?

"Yeah," Hidan followed, stunned. "I do. But it's different, because I don't remember anything before that. I just think of it as the beginning. My first memory."

"It's still there," Konan consoled. "If you can cry for no reason, that's proof that it's still there. Just because you don't remember your Before doesn't mean it's gone. It's there. It's _here._" She moved her hand down to press it against his chest.

Hidan's heart beat strongly against her hand. He said nothing, but tapped her beside her eye twice. They were quick, businesslike taps. He then moved his hand to cover her chest too.

Time stopped; the outside world ceased to exist. Her heart beat once, twice, three times against Hidan's hand. Konan heard her own words echo around the dark cocoon she shared with Hidan. She heard herself saying, very clearly, that as long as a Before was remembered somehow, it was not truly gone.

Hidan occupied himself while she thought about things by purring. _Now_ he was in business. It was so funny, how people almost always came up with their own answers. But it's hard to interrogate someone you can't see or feel, so he could understand why some outside service might be required. And, as a side benefit, hopefully she would feel less alone. Stories were good for that.

Hidan's purring deepened. _Heh. That means it took a day to get Kakuzu hooked. I crashed on his couch for one night, and then the next day I got him to tell me about what he did for a living, and he told me that story about the first time he scammed a casino. I wasn't just crashing at his place after that. I should read more often. _

He took his hand back so he could reach out and pull her closer. Konan ended up curled against his chest, which made him feel very tired. He was sinking, and fast. "Should tell stories more often…" he mumbled, before sinking into the depths of sleep.

**Konan**

Somewhere inside Konan, in a little dark space, there was a feather. It floated above a liquid, twitching this way and that, following passing air currents. Eventually, though, it drifted down to the surface of the liquid, which never passed and only slowly changed. As a constant, the liquid lay there, for when the passing currents stopped blowing and everything settled. The feather settled onto the surface.

The oil slick began its work at once, oozing through and around the thin, translucent filaments. The feather began to sink, and more tar flowed over it, encasing its delicate fibers in heavy blackness. The feather sank, more and more blackness piling up around it, although it had already been covered at the surface. The black, grimy, smeariness thickened until the feather stopped falling and lay there, buried. Each filament broke apart from the rest, and the tar oozed between. The griminess was heavy, and pressing, so it was inevitable that it should press its way into the feather's fibers. The feather, so silvery and light in the air, filled with grime, drowned in stickiness. It became heavy and dirty, inside and out. The filth replaced all possibility of flight, and the feather resumed falling, falling…

Konan lay against Hidan's chest, and sank into the depths with him. She did not dream of pain, as she had expected. Instead, she dreamed of suffering. Being unable to move, and failing to keep up. Here an arm, there a leg, suddenly broken, and she could never remember if they had always been broken or if they had only recently become so. In all of her dreams, her path tilted to the right no matter how hard she tried to walk straight, much like a plane crashes despite trying to stay up. It came to a head in the dream where she was trying to dig books out of the walls of a hospital, and actually crashed through one of those walls. She spent a very long dream there in the twilight beyond, trying to move but always dragging around in circles. The twilight became horizon light and the colors of a sky, and all was tilting every which way, and she was falling…

There were also dreams of accusation, in which paper figurines of her were being ripped to shreds in Konoha for some reason, but she couldn't remember it, and nobody would tell her what she had done. And the sky was a sickly green, which is how she knew they were in Underground Konoha instead of the normal one, and her sentence was to stand beneath an upside-down mountain of cuboid blocks waiting for them to eventually fall and crush her. All the blocks were labeled with their color and a number which corresponded to the color; she catalogued all the colors, and built an inventory of how many blocks there were of each. The worst part of the punishment, which broke her heart after a while, was that no matter how hard she tried and no matter what angle she used, she would never be able to count the blocks on the inside of the mountain. With her broken right wing pulling her out of the air, there was nothing she could do to change this. So she circled the mountain and watched, waited, _hoped_, for any part of it to come crashing down so she could finally take a look.

There were dreams of sickness, too. These ones overlapped - her eternity beneath the cube mountain was exacerbated by a mounting fever and her broken wing swelling up so that it was twice as large as her and she could not move a finger without screaming, for example. Her broken wing in that one did not make a sharp pain when she tried to move; there was no help coming for her, not even in that form. Instead it generated a sledgehammer blast that convinced her she really had been smacked across the face, and the rest of the time it _ached_ all the way down to the bone. The sickness was inside. She had no dreams where she tried to vomit, but she did have a dream where she switched bodies with Hidan and felt for herself the horror of straining to get out of his body and escape from beneath the ground, but never being able to. It was exhausting, but she was too fearful of what might happen to try escaping from his shattered body through sleep, either.

Konan wandered up from sleep after this dream, but did not reach full wakefulness, so she was not aware of it. All that happened from her still-dreaming perspective was that she was suddenly paralyzed and in a bed with Hidan. She burned energy to overcome the paralysis enough to flop her hand against his chest. "Mm?" he mumbled.

"Curshhhed," she drawled. Her mouth was partially paralyzed too. "Jasshhhn?"

"Nah," he yawned. "Mm. 'M here 'cause 'e died. No curse. There's 'ay out."

"Oh." Jashin-sama did not curse his followers with endless immortality. This was a good thing, and it meant somebody was not trapped. The strangeness aroused her suspicions. Konan might've woken up from the shock of something good happening, except she fell back into sleep after getting an answer and promptly forgot how to be suspicious. She wondered what the way out was, and searched for it in vain. The ground was filling with tar. No chance.

The rest of her sleep was deep, but not healing. Between dreams, her heart was more active than it should have been. She was going to feel as if there really was dirt ground into her flesh the next morning, upon waking.

Hidan wasn't going to feel any better, but something was different for him. He dreamed about the ants in his eyes again, and wondered. Hadn't that happened before? He also dug for fossilized plants in the La Brea tar pits, and fell in, and hadn't that happened before? Even when he was away in completely different dreams, such as the one where he kept trying to catch a cloud with a coat hanger, a strong sense of familiarity permeated everything. It had all happened before. Futility, aches, all of it, he felt like he was going to explode with the sense of knowing it from somewhere. He beat his hands against a wooden door (curse him for making it stronger with his words!) and slicked a staircase with blood as he tried to escape a rising feeling of something about to erupt. It baked the air and glowed with lava light and chanted _Before…_

_Before,_ Konan whispered. _Before._ It meant something, or it might have, once upon a time, somewhere far far away…

_Before._ It was useless, but it might once have had meaning, so she kept whispering it. _Before._ What had it once meant? She held onto it, repeating it like a chant. There was no tar now, but liquid rock instead. Konan could feel herself being obliterated, but only from a great distance, as if she was watching a nature documentary where some gazelle was eaten. That was how she perceived the searing heat. Even her words were stolen by the liquid rock. She knew not whether they disappeared, or emerged elsewhere. It was of no concern.

She was only concerned that she should try to fly, and she wanted to try to fly, but even though the rest of the magma was surging upward she was still falling through it and could not spread her wings…

Back in the waking world, their dark cocoon filled with the sound of rustling. Giant shapes snapped into place and flicked outwards, knocking a lamp to the ground and scratching the ceiling. They also threw the blanket off the bed, bringing relief to Hidan's bright red, sweaty skin. The walls were scratched, the carpet ripped. Something large and powerful appeared in the dream worlds of all the other sleepers there that night.

Konan was wrong; she _could._

.

**A/N: I _really, really _**love** writing dream sequences. It is just so very much fun. Today's cuboid mountain was inspired by a dream I had last night where I was in a huge room that doesn't really exist in my school, and someone was showing me their towering, flowerlike creations made of colored cubes. They had yet to install the cyan-colored cubes, but there was enough for me to wonder how they did the arches. I went to climb the stairs for a view from above, and then switched into a completely different plot, so I didn't get to see. Pity...**

**BTW, this chapter contradicts nothing I have previously said about Hidan's new sex-changing powers. I really did give him those just because I thought it would be fun. I only realized that power could have any sort of important use when I wrote that sentence of this chapter. It's still fun, though. **

**Yeah, you bet I'm not about to allow Hidan to be cursed. I said as much last chapter, I think. **

**In their own way, Konan's wings can be just as monstrous as Kakuzu's tentacles, or anyone else's anything. Even Itachi's eyes got creepy in the show, when characters started swapped Sharingans around all willy-nilly. What kind of structure must those things have, to be treated so crudely? I bet if a real eye was pulled out of someone's head by someone else's fingers, it would be crushed in the process. Fingers are strong! **

**My dreams last night ended with one where I was walking up my street, and everything was warm and sunny, and the warmth released all the scents of the ground and such, so everything smelled good too. There was a festival being held - all up and down my street, people were standing and talking, or sitting behind booths, with children drawing in chalk and running around all over the street. It was the kind of warm atmosphere where, when I got home, my family was making chocolate pudding to share, and some other people had come in to help and joke and it was like a party in there. It wasn't any specific kind of festival, not like a planned celebration. It was just because of the weather and the warmth, and because people were happy. That mood was in the air. I hope that a dream like this can become reality, and if not, here's a happy picture for you all to see in your heads right now. **

**Happy April!**


	40. Air Dance

**A/N: I forgot to mention it in last chapter's end notes, but they were long enough anyway. Yeah, their mysterious little town is officially located somewhere in America. Might as well make it official, seeing as the story's written in American English and 9/11 is a pretty important part of Hidan's backstory. **

**Many of the characters' experiences with sleep are drawn from my own. The next 4 paragraphs describe a thing that actually happens to me sometimes. I hope it's just a me thing. **

**.**

**General**

Sometimes, in the past, when she had felt more tired than usual and more desirous of sleep, Konan had noticed something peculiar about the way she failed to get it. In the extremely rare absence of anything that needed doing, she had sometimes tried to sleep in, or return to sleep during the morning. This rarely worked, but she kept trying in the hope that this next occasion would be one of those rare exceptions.

Most of the time, it wasn't. Most of the time, Konan would feel her mind slowing down as if to start on the road to sleep, and she would lie still and feel her body coming to rest. Her eyelids would be firmly shut, and she would be unable to open them. For some time, she would think these were good signs. That time lasted, at the most, for half an hour. It was established from previous experience that if she was in this condition for that long, the odds were against it changing.

The problem was all in her mind. It would slow down, but only a little, and then it would reach an upside-down plateau where her thinking mind resolutely refused to shut down. She would think, and think, and her thoughts never got disorganized or dreamlike as they should have. Her body was more cooperative, unfortunately. The essential feeling at those times was one of being trapped. Between her body that insisted on not moving for hours despite its high heart rate, and her mind that was just sluggish enough that she couldn't overcome her body's wishes, Konan ended up trapped on days where she attempted this, wondering why she had ever tried such a stupid thing. _Thank the gods for enemy action_, she would think when the outside world came to wake her mind up and end this horrible paralysis.

_Please, someone, let there be enemy action,_ she prayed on this day. Konan remembered that first day, when she had seen the road and realized that this world asked for different things. In place of strength, it demanded control. In this world, there would be no enemies coming to provide a reason for getting up, no structured mission to complete. It was possible that she _could_ spend hours alone with her thoughts and a body that felt like it needed a thorough scouring. That possibility was more terrifying than any amount of enemy action could be. She felt sunlight on her cheek, and tried to turn her head. It didn't happen. Sunlight on her eyes probably wouldn't help anyway. Her neck was jammed stiff, her face was dried stiff, her limbs felt fine up until she asked them to do anything (_sounds like rusted_), and Konan's eyelids had inexplicably sextupled in weight. Her poor eyelid muscles just couldn't lift them for more than short bursts, especially not after being partially paralyzed.

_*sigh* Dammit…_ It was hopeless. Maybe after a few hours of being a useless wreckage, this rusted feeling would wear off.

Hidan let out a high pitched whimper. Konan remembered he was there and probably feeling like she did, and a surge of pity unlocked her arm. There was no way she would let him feel like that. His proper place was somewhere open, and his proper activity was fighting, racing, or perhaps dancing. _He would look good if he danced. _What no version of Hidan should _ever_ be was rusted, stiffened, and lying around with invisible dirt ground into his joints inside and out. That was unthinkable.

_What am I doing? I can't submit to any trap, because he promised to be here with me and he can't be trapped. What am I doing? As long as he's suffering, I have no choice…_ She raised her arm, and threw it across her body to her right, making sure to keep the joint stiff so it would pull on her shoulder. With some assistance from abdominal muscles, she fell off the side of the bed and landed on the floor. Finally, she was awake. Somewhat. Enough.

She stood up and stretched, forcing her muscles to recognize that they were capable of moving. Her muscles protested this. They were sullen, cranky, angry, sad, and refused to acknowledge that there was anything else they could be. _The world contains other feelings than this_, she reminded herself. Yeah right, as if that could be believed. She decided to believe it anyway. Hidan needed her to.

"Ugh," he groaned as he spent a full minute working himself to a sitting position. "It feels like sour. Really. My body, sour. How the fuck?"

"I thought it was rusted," Konan replied. The angry rumors her muscles were spreading amongst themselves did feel a little sour. Truthfully, she couldn't think of a single word normally applied to spoiled food or tarnished metal that couldn't currently apply to her own body.

"This feels familiar," Hidan whispered to himself. He tilted his head, and though Konan couldn't see his face, she guessed that he had a questioning look on it. "I don't remember anything, but it feels like my body does. My muscles and shit definitely remember feeling like this before."

"My condolences," Konan said. Her voice was too flat. She wished she could make it livelier, inject it with more of the feeling that she thought she had. She wanted to sound comforting. But she couldn't offer comfort yet, so she turned and put on her cloak instead.

Hidan got up to do the same and pick up his scythe. "Oh, by the way, it works," he remembered to mention. "I tried making a jump with it. It kinda works as a substitute tail."

Konan said nothing. She would have liked to congratulate him, but what was the point if everything she said sounded fake?

She turned away from the present and tried to consider the future. _Oh, I should not have done that._ The idea of an entire day, an entire weekend, the _rest of her life_, blended together into something huge and awful. An urge to cry passed through her, just for an instant. Of course she didn't. Crying was for more energetic forms of pain. This was an energy-sapping form, so instead of crying she breathed shallowly and slowly and looked down at the thin carpet. She might as well go back to bed if she was going to be this useful. She might as well wander off somewhere and got lost, find some field to sit alone in. There would be stars when night fell. Ironically, this thought was very motivating. _That's it. From now on, no thinking more than five minutes into the future._ That time span still included meeting at least one person. She turned to Hidan.

He had bags under his eyes from poor-quality sleep. He grumbled to himself, then forced a little energy into his steps. He opened the door and took Konan's hand. He was plainly not in the mood for trying to be reassuring or hopeful.

_That's alright. As long as he's here, simply existing, he is reassuring and hopeful. _She followed him out. _No matter what happens now, I'm not alone. _

They ended up in the kitchen, where something was being made. Konan couldn't tell if it was delicious or not; her stomach was silent, and possibly dead. The idea of food was too remote to catch her attention and evoke any desire to eat. Even the smell was far away. Konan wondered about Hidan's feeling of familiarity. The smell of food, which she was currently experiencing, felt just like that. It felt like other, different versions of her smelling food in the past, with no relation to her current state. _Maybe it was familiar to his body. He has the same body as his original, after all. There must be many things their bodies remember that they don't. I hope whatever my Hidan went through wasn't very bad. _She really hoped it had no relation to being buried alive in pieces. She'd succumbed to morbid curiosity before and wondered what existing in that condition must feel like. The obvious conclusion she'd drawn was that she had entirely too much morbid curiosity for her own good.

At any rate, regardless of whether or not she felt like eating, the food probably was delicious, because Yahiko was making it. Konan averted her eyes. She'd hoped to break the news more gently, whenever she got around to breaking it. He must be feeling terrible. He must be feeling terribly guilty, because he was always the sort to feel guilty for things he shouldn't. He must feel like an ass, when he was the last thing. And this put Konan into a bad position, because if she corrected him and put some logical sense into his head, she'd be removing the only thing that kept him looking at her kindly. She couldn't be sure if she wanted him to look at her like that or not. She averted her eyes from that beautiful face, and tried not to notice the subtle tension that had crept into the tilt of his head as she entered the room.

Yahiko was also trying to avert his eyes, but had less practice. He wanted to see how she was, and do something if she wasn't feeling well. The first step in doing that was to look at her, so he didn't. He could be pretty sure by now that his first instincts were, when it came to her, the wrong things to do. He turned his head in the other direction and nodded to Nagato, who leaned against the opposite wall surveying the situation. Nagato nodded back. Yahiko kept his head turned down at the neglected-but-usable stove opposite the fridge as Konan passed behind him. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do.

Hidan sat down on the counters that still did not have a sink in them. He still had some steering to do before he could rest. Fortunately, steering Konan wasn't hard at all. All he had to do was yawn and slump down pathetically.

Yahiko finished his omelet and divided it in three while Konan was thus preoccupied. He pondered dividing it in four after seeing how Hidan looked, but Nagato shook his head. Yahiko wondered who wasn't eating, and what they were going to have instead. He used the side of the fork to slice a piece off his omelet and chewed it worriedly, trying not to stare at Konan too openly.

Nagato took the other two plates across, where he handed them to Konan and Hidan. Of course he was hungry, but this was a last-minute change to the plan. He greeted them both with, "Hey."

Konan nodded, looking down at her omelet. She took a single bite and chewed it. Her stomach woke up and began urgently demanding more, as it had been taught to do. _Ah, not all of me is broken. I still have my training. _She remembered the first minutes after awaking in this world, and began to inventory what she had, just as she had back then. She had her clothes, and all the minor contents of her pockets. She had Hidan's regard. She had minor jutsu, whatever she could do with low chakra and no reserves. She had Yahiko's unreasoning, stubborn insistence on seeing the best in people. If Hidan had heard correctly, she had Nagato's support. And, though it was a stretch to believe, Hidan seemed to believe she also had respect. She had the quiet corner of the roof to rest in and look over the forest. She had food and water. The grimy feeling retreated, and something in her felt halfway clean again. Even if she didn't list the patently ridiculous, she still had more than she had counted upon awakening in the grass. Konan rubbed her forehead. _Control. I must keep my mind about me at all times, or it's over. _She filed away this technique of "inventorying her supplies" as a useful mental technique for when she felt tired. Imagining somewhere quiet and alone, possibly with stars, also went in this file.

Hidan dropped his fork onto his empty plate with a clatter. "Mkay," he started. "I'mma be somewhere only I know about, where I go to get away from people every so often and recharge and shit. Fuck this, I'm outta here." He fixed Nagato with a look. _You're up, deputy. _The redhead gulped, and nodded. Hidan decided that was enough, and left.

Yahiko, Nagato and Konan stood together in a rather small room. "I'll also be somewhere else," Yahiko volunteered. "I think I'll be in the backyard trying out things to do with plants, actually. Bye!" _Could I go any less gracefully? Who says "Bye!" like that? Better get out before I embarrass myself any further. _He slipped out the door and was gone, leaving only Konan and her self-appointed replacement brother in the room.

Nagato coughed. How did one go about trying to form a bond? It either happened, or… Now that he thought about it, he realized he had no clue how to do what he had promised on purpose.

Konan's heart began to beat faster, and faster. Something burned at the corners of her eyes. The distance between them was a whole world wide, uncrossable…_ except in a warm hand and a cocoon of darkness…_

The room was bright and small. Not darkness, but it would do. It_ must _do. She let out some nervous energy closing the doors. The longing was overpowering her again. Konan worried that she might be getting addicted to not being alone. Wasn't that a bad thing? Or was it? _Hidan said something about this Nagato wanting to be like a brother to me. Here's his chance. _

She gave up and resigned herself to eagerly looking forward to talking with someone else. Nagato seemed to know this. He sat on the countertops and waited for her to finish. When she did, she sat next to him.

Konan looked out at the blank but reflective tile. It was a cocoon of light. "How badly did your Jiraiya sensei mangle the talk when you were eleven?" she asked.

Nagato stifled a burst of laughter, then unstifled it. "Oh, wow," he said through a grin. "I haven't thought about that in years. He _tortured_ it."

Konan looked at him, bringing her legs up onto the counter and turning to fully face Nagato. "Naturally. I want details."

Nagato swung his legs up and sat cross-legged facing her. "So, he brought us to this isolated corner of the park. You might not know how it is - in this world, a strange man meeting with kids he's not related or connected to at all is pretty weird, so he usually saw us in public, like at a park, or an ice cream place. He took us to the quiet corner of the park away from the play areas, where it was all shady from the trees. And he said something like, 'Well, now that you boys are older, there's, um, something you should know about.' He couldn't seem to look at us, and he was red, but he looked like he had to so he was going to torture himself through it anyway. It just went downhill from there."

Konan smiled. "Oh, yes. My version sat us down the same way, and that was the one coherent sentence he made. The rest was… We managed to piece together that there was a special way men and women related to each other as they grew older, and it had something to do with babies. All I remember aside from that is that we shouldn't be relating to each other that way unless we're ready to have children, and if one of us has something transmissible we should wear something over the relevant parts to keep fluids separate. He never actually described what he was talking about."

Nagato chuckled and nodded. "He didn't even make it that far with us. He tried to describe what he was talking about, saw that even Yahiko was red, and quit while he was ahead. He gave us a list of topics to look for in the library. It was so much less embarrassing that way."

_Ouch._ There was a stab of unexpected pain. Konan winced and her eyes clouded, but she spoke through it. "My version… We didn't have a library. We…" The cloudiness started to condense into actual tears as Konan remembered having a place to sleep and a bedtime. Those things had been so precious, so _needed_ after living without. But she hadn't been the type to cry from something so trivial as a need. Decades-old tears began to drip from her eyes. The feeling of having a family was something she had wanted back then, just like she wanted to share and not be alone now. The only difference was that this version of Nagato hadn't had a bedtime, or a place to sleep, or anything. He'd had a library. Konan didn't know how that connected but somehow it did, and for the first time ever she understood exactly how precious those trappings of family life had been.

"Konan?" She had an arm over her eyes and was breathing deeply, interrupting herself every so often with what sounded like laughter. Nagato hoped it was laughter. What had he said?

"Nagato…" She interrupted herself with a sob this time. _Jiraiya sensei sent him and Yahiko off to the library, and they learned everything they needed to from there. _Why was that so sad?

"Um…" Nagato hesitated. Should he hug her, try to comfort her another way, or leave her alone? She wasn't able to speak to tell him what she wanted. What should he do?

_I'm here because Yahiko can't be. What would he do? _

Nagato hopped off the counter and wrapped his arms around her without a second's hesitation. To his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him back and buried her face in his shoulder. He rubbed her back awkwardly, which for some reason sent her into convulsions of emotion. Nagato stood there and hoped he was helping.

Konan waited for the first deep breath that didn't tremble before she tried to speak. "We were alone. Not...not in a village. So there was no...library. I told Other You and Yahiko what I knew of animals, and made reasonable guesses. It didn't make any difference anyway. We didn't really need that information."

"Oh. You and Yahiko...never…?" They were going into deeper territory than he had initially expected.

"No." Konan sniffed. "We had things to talk through. I didn't want to hurt him." Her voice swelled and shattered over the last two words, as if it were the surface of the ocean and those words were Godzilla. Nagato held her tighter and prepared to stand there some more, but Konan burst out into laughter. The best part was, Konan was well aware that she must be very confusing to anyone who didn't know her thoughts. She wondered if she should tell Nagato or keep it as a joke. _Nothing here is a joke._ Then why was she laughing?

Nagato tried rubbing her back again. She managed to keep her breath still long enough to fill him in on the joke in that - "Hidan does that too" - before chuckling into his shoulder. Nagato wondered why that was funny.

Konan pulled back and sat on the countertops, wiping her face. "I have no idea. Just...the connections, I suppose. Obviously he's only done that if I needed it, so now, it's a reminder of other times. I don't know why that adds up to something humorous."

Nagato could sympathize. He had not the slightest understanding of this particular reaction to this particular issue, but he had smiled before when, by chance, he had seen something that reminded him of something else. It was like the human brain knew that its job was to make connections, so whenever it made one, no matter how trivial, it gave itself a little reward. Nagato told her of this theory.

Konan shrugged. She was returning to her usual businesslike self. "I must be embodying every hysterical woman trope there is," she whispered. Was that a trace of scorn in her voice? "Hidan makes no sense at all." Yes, that was definitely a trace of scorn in there.

"Not true," Nagato told her. She smiled again and barely stifled a snort. "You are _not_ embodying hysterical woman tropes. You are embodying people who've been through a lot and look like it tropes." Of the three of them, Nagato figured he was the least equipped for this particular job. Yahiko had more natural empathy, and Hidan had more practice. He took a deep breath, quickly ran through everything he had learned from Yahiko's example, and tried again. "Besides, crying is good. I like it."

Konan looked up, puzzled.

Nagato smiled kindly, projecting as much confidence as he could. "The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that you have one, and crying is the recognition that you have one. This is a good sign. I'm _glad_ to see you crying, instead of breaking into someone's house and setting fire to things. It's a sign of hope."

Konan sighed and crossed her arms. "Perhaps." Nagato heard the implied, _But that doesn't change anything,_ loud and clear.

What had he missed? He quickly went back over everything she had said recently. He wasn't talking about the right thing. What should he be -

_Scorn._ Scorn, close cousin of anger, strong commercial ties to shame. Oh ye gods, this was going to be difficult.

"And you're not a hysterical woman, either," he told her. "A hysterical woman would be crying over something trivial, which you are not doing. Nobody thinks you're ridiculous, or that anything is embarrassing. You're allowed to cry at a funeral. Honestly, if you didn't, it wouldn't have looked good. How are we supposed to be friends with you if you're a robot and won't allow anyone to know you have feelings? Part of the problem with breaking into Sasori's house is that it came from nowhere with no obvious reason, so it was worrisome and frightening. We like, want, and demand reasons. _Please_ do not be a robot, do not keep calm and carry on if you aren't calm, and, don't seem like something you aren't. _We're_ not endless fountains of calmness and carrying on, so if you seem to be, it's a little intimidating even if we know logically that it can't be true. You don't seem unstable, you seem unscary. Thank you. Hidan's idea was a great one. He makes perfect sense."

Nagato stopped and thought about what he'd just said while he caught his breath. He hadn't intended to give a full-fledged speech on all the reasons she didn't suck, but it seemed he had. _If that's not enough, I'm done. That's all I've ever felt about her, everything I had to say even if I didn't plan on saying it. She has bigger problems if she can't understand even that. _

Konan stared up at him. He was breathing hard, as if he'd gone to great effort to dredge up something very deep and very strongly felt. _Perhaps he has._ She put aside most of it to be digested later. Until then, all she had to say was, "A lot of people seem to want to make friends with me."

"Yeah, we do." Nagato looked at her more closely. "Why do you say that?"

"It's not necessary, is it?" She squinted and looked through Nagato as if she was looking at a puzzle. "Itachi mentioned last week that mutuality of respect is asked for in this world, but mutual respect is very different from friendship. The idea of seeking some more personal relationship from a leader or supervisor sounds bizarre and more than a little inappropriate to me."

Nagato's mouth fell open. He gave his brain permission to pack up and take a short holiday while he finished rehearing what she said. _Supervisor._ That word was a mental pothole, into which his Jeep of thought fell and broke its front axle, never to be driven again. _That is...not?_ The rearview mirror fell down, breaking through the windshield. The sound of broken glass on rocky ground was heard.

Konan observed his dumbfounded reaction. What was he so surprised for?

Tires were rotating…

"Nagato."

And just like that, there he was, in a brand new vehicle. Nagato blinked and closed his mouth. He cleared his throat. "You're not a leader or supervisor, though," he managed to get out. "Those are titles. Official things you can have that make you special and different, and which can't be changed. That's not…" He waved his hands around aimlessly. She probably got the point.

She kind of did, but the point didn't make any sense. Konan thought back over every interaction she'd ever had with this group. She'd gathered them, held meetings, gave orders, maintained order after the fallout of her actions. What the hell else could she be? "Explain."

"You're like…" Nagato looked around the room, searching for a suitable comparison. _What would Yahiko say? _"You're like Yahiko."

There was a beat of silence, before Nagato decided to just move on. It was a good comparison, and one she would understand. This wasn't the time for tiptoeing. "Yahiko's special," he murmured, with a rather fervent tone in his voice. This was _his_ territory, the absolute, uncontested foundations of truth as he knew it. "He has ideas. He thinks about what should be, and he has the look in his eyes that convinces you, that really _is_ how it should be. He just makes you want to go with him, somehow. But that doesn't make him a _supervisor_." Nagato shivered. "That term is so cold, clinical, like something not natural. What he is is very natural. He's with me, on my same level, like we're parts of the same creature. He just happens to be the part with the eyes.

"But if he tried to make that official, I'd laugh and tell him to stop being ridiculous. Sometimes, I lead the way forward, if I can see which way that is and he can't. It's not set in stone, it's not something I ask of him." Nagato paused to think about how he could connect this back to Konan and her situation. "Nobody ever said they would work for you. We only agreed to see what this idea you had was like: this idea of the Akatsuki, of us all being together and being ninjas. You had an idea, and Hidan had the spirit, and I decided it would be good to at least try. It wasn't you, it was your idea, and the fact that you had one and knew things we didn't know."

Nagato sighed and wondered how things could have gotten so backwards. "I don't have any idea how this is news to you," he admitted. "We agreed, for our own reasons. You asked for meetings, and we spent half of them listening to you dispense information and the other half questioning said information. And then Hidan came up with ideas, like digging up his stuff, without asking permission or anything. We went to a bar together, which you never in a million years would have suggested. And then, after Sasori, I don't think you heard most of the debates we had. That got mostly settled because Sasori seems to have a head on his shoulders and has never had a problem with refusing, so if he stayed there had to be a good reason. We question you all the time, refuse things, ask for things. Hidan takes over the suggesting of ideas, and then he leaves it to me, or someone else, and everybody else is off making sub-plans on their own anyway. When did anybody ever ask permission?"

In Nagato's memory, nobody ever had. Nobody had asked for permission, and everybody had refused some things. That was when it struck him.

"Oh." His eyes widened, and he started to feel rather silly. "I just now realized something. Um…" He moved to sit next to Konan again. Her eyes were distant; he hoped he wasn't overloading her. "I guess everything I just said can all be summarized down to one thing." He turned to face her. "What would happen if you asked someone to do something they didn't want to? Like...what would happen if you asked Deidara to blow something up that could hurt somebody, or asked Kisame to skip Samehada's weekly bath for something?" As far as Nagato knew, no such weekly bath existed; he just needed an example to use. "Or asked Kakuzu to do something trivial or frivolous. What would happen?"

Nagato stopped here, because he knew he should and because all this talking was starting to feel...odd. It felt like something was happening in him, some long-unused reflex waking and exercising itself. It had felt strange to accidentally end up giving a whole speech about her virtues, but since when did such a thing happen accidentally in the first place? Halfway through his explanation about Yahiko, he'd begun to realize something else. Not only did talking come naturally, but explaining, and not only explaining, but arguing in circles during which he was the only one talking, and his thoughts were the only ones running. He'd gotten into a groove, and somehow taken over the whole room. He knew now that his original had been in charge, and that explained a lot, but _holy crap_ was it scary. His entire spine was prickling. A horrifying thing occurred to him.

_Did my original lead according to Konan's definition of leadership?_

Nagato's mouth went dry. He was pretty sure she'd said or implied something about having learned leadership from being at his side. If so, there was a risk he could start to disregard people's feelings and maybe even clash with Yahiko. _I hope not. Please, please let me continue to follow Yahiko's example as I always have. _

Meanwhile, Konan, who was used to being led to one point or another, failed to notice how out of character that was for this version of Nagato. She was too busy answering his question. "They would put up resistance or refuse," she murmured. "They'd look at me like I was strange for asking such a thing. I would switch tactics and attempt to persuade them instead, or someone else would jump in and do that for me. If I tried to get Kakuzu to do something trivial just because I wanted him to and I was in charge, he'd contest that claim and refuse." Nagato was right. And so was Sasori - he had said he was not a puppet and he didn't work for her, and he didn't. At most, she held one string, not the whole set.

_And that's okay. _She had backed down before. If Nagato was entirely correct, she hadn't let anybody down. They didn't need her information or plans or advice. They would move along without her guidance. They already were, according to Hidan.

That was terrifying.

Where was she, and what was she supposed to be doing? How was she supposed to make things work the way she hoped they would? Was it all up to chance and the will of a crowd of other people? How was she supposed to handle a crowd?

Konan sighed, and realized that at some point she had slumped under the weight of these considerations and was now leaning against Nagato's shoulder. He had his arm around her shoulders and was holding her up. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Who decides what happens?"

"The whole thing does." She felt him shrug. "It's the sort of thing that you need to be enmeshed in because it always changes. Like Yahiko and I: two parts of the same creature. It's...complicated."

Konan thought about his comparison to Yahiko. What had it been like, to be a part of the three of them? Always in touch, acting out roles never assigned but felt nonetheless…

"Family?"

Nagato thought about that. "I think so," he realized. "I don't remember very well what that was like. You think…?"

The idea of family was amazing to them both. An incredible warmth bubbled up in Nagato's chest, and something clicked into place. He couldn't have said what it was, but he sensed enhanced understanding between himself and Konan. He thought he understood something about their earlier conversation that had ended in tears, which was odd, since he was still confused by it. Maybe some understandings couldn't be spoken of, like the systems you just had to be a part of.

"Hey," he shook her gently. "You want to go hang out in town? We could walk around and talk about our worlds. Find somewhere good to eat. I'm starving."

Konan tried to picture that, and succeeded. She successfully imagined talking and laughing with her brother in a private cocoon that they could build anywhere. _Like Hidan._ No, not quite like Hidan; he could generate his own cocoon anywhere with anyone. It was vastly more important and more special that she spend such a day with someone else, and the knowledge that she could gave her a feeling of great strength. The strength was great enough that she even dared to ask for something previously unimaginable.

"Let's bring Yahiko. I heard you two wanted cloaks."

Nagato's heart skipped a beat, even as his hand reached for his phone. "S-sure." _Yes!_

A breeze blew across the surface of the liquid, and caught on the very tip of the feather. Still heavy, it twitched this way and that, before slowly skimming across the surface. Some grime dripped off the end of it, revealing translucent silvery fibers. The feather started a little air dance. A light day was just what the doctor ordered.

.

**A/N: I'm still trying to write a fluff chapter. How do other fanfic authors do it? *_Please, please let next chapter come out fluffy, PLEASE*_**

**I've had this story tagged as 'Family' from the start (or at least meant to. It actually took a few chapters before I tagged this as anything). Thought it couldn't hurt to specify why. It's a different world; they're all going to be different, and the differences of the whole are greater than the sum of the individual differences.**

**For the love of Cheeses, next chapter is going to come out fluffy, or at LEAST light-hearted if it comes to life and kills me! I know I said in the first chapter's notes that I would try to avoid writing sentences or paragraphs of absolutely nothing, and fluff usually counts as absolutely nothing, but this is character development fluff! It's different! Hopefully that's enough justification to get past my inclination towards serious matters and sadness and such.**

**Hoppy Easter!**


	41. You Are My Sunshine

**A/N: This chapter's title is not a clue as to why Yahiko's nickname in this story is Sunshine. All the characters have similar kinds of codenames in my head, actually, because I thought of a story idea once where they were all rendered as inanimate objects and animals. So all the Akatsuki members have animal/object/both codenames in my head, and those codenames were all based on what they resemble. So Yahiko is not named after a song, he's named after his bright personality. It just so happens to be convenient for chapter naming purposes. **

**The version referenced is Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Sunshine. The lyrics video on Youtube is full of sunflowers.**

**My quest to write a fluff chapter has failed. However, I did write half a fluff chapter. Because of this, I can be very confident that this story will never have a chapter that is entirely fluffy, and it's not my fault. Every fluff piece I've ever seen was very short, much shorter than these chapters. Therefore it is simply impossible to have an entire chapter of fluff and that's nobody's fault. **

**The following is a description of an actual "documentary" I saw many years ago, probably on Youtube. I believe it had "Plants" in the title somewhere. This is not a joke. **

**.**

**Yahiko**

_Sorry!_

Yahiko sat on the grass and wiped his forehead. It gave his hands something to do while he debated with himself over the use of plants for research purposes. He had seen a video once which talked about plants, and he had forgotten most of it. The one part he remembered was the part at the end, where the researcher investigated plants' mind reading abilities by threatening to cut off a leaf and then actually doing it. The equipment he had monitoring the plant's physical responses supposedly gave a huge leap just before the guy actually cut the leaf, but not when he only threatened to, which supposedly supported his hypothesis that plants could read minds. Yahiko was extremely doubtful of this "experiment," but he regarded it as a good video on general moral principles. Why not treat plants kindly at every opportunity? Why not treat them with respect, as living things whose lives matter? _Doubly so now that they might have friendly wood spirits in them. _That was also a factor.

For these reasons, Yahiko had apologized nicely to the bush before he did anything, and he had cut off as little leaf as he thought he could get away with. That was still quite a lot of leaf, because he did not have microscopic vision and therefore needed to sever a major vessel to see anything. He had apologized nicely afterwards, as well, and buried the severed parts near the roots. Until he could locate a book on the proper ways to pay one's respects to nature spirits, he thought it was better to apologize a few times more than he had to, and not a few times less.

Yahiko summarized his results now. _I can soothe plants. Cool! _The leaf he had cut and watched had eventually developed noticeable drops of fluid on the severed end. The leaf he had cut, touched lightly on its upper surface, and channeled chakra into while watching had not leaked noticeable drops of fluid. Therefore, he concluded, the odds were good that his soothing abilities could work on plants as well. Science!

Of course, there had been a secondary purpose to this experiment. While he was watching for fluid, Yahiko had also been watching the severed end in general, and he had made sure to cut both leaves at approximately the same point. As far as that went, he saw nothing happen. _But I do not heal plants, just like I do not heal people. I guess making tissues grow is its own technique. _Yahiko wondered what that technique was. If he could master it, it would be something he need never fear using. _I'll need seeds for that, and whoever it was that made the flowers grow to full size in just a few hours. Yaha, I can't wait! _He giggled to himself. It was his own version of the Tobi dance that Hidan had done.

Yahiko was just about to move on to his more conventional water jutsu when his phone buzzed. He hummed some kind of cheerful tune he'd long forgotten the words to as he checked it. His cheerful humming was interrupted with a gasp as he read and promptly reread the messages he was getting.

_Konan's doing well, wants to go to town. Invited you along!_

_(cheerleader emoji) Holy #$%^#*$&!_

_Knock on wood for me!_

Yahiko giggled some more as he stepped sideways and knocked three times on a tree. It was awestruck giggling. He'd hoped for updates, and he'd been very optimistic about those updates consisting of good news, but this! To be invited along with Konan for something…

It was nearly unimaginable. He would have hoped, and then sighed because such a hope was unlikely. Yahiko shook himself, shivering from side to side in his best imitation of a wet dog. _Alright, focus. I need to take full advantage of this. Cheerful, but not in her face. Smiling, but maybe hold the laughing and dancing until later - she's probably tired. Tell her about my plans - she'd like to hear that I have some. Dignity. Strength. Throw her a rope, and all that. _He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it to maximum spikiness and disorganization, then used the same hand to smooth it back from his forehead. _Today's going to be such a good day! _

He texted Nagato, _(cheerleader emoji) (thumbs up) great news! (heart) you're the best!_ and raced around to the front to meet them.

He spent a good several minutes looking up and down the street, taking the time to appreciate what they had. A few buildings up the street, an overgrown bush was beginning to clamber up the walls of some kind of office, covering that wall in faint yellow blossoms in the process. The sound of quiet permeated the air, except for where a couple early birds were beginning to chirp back and forth at each other behind Yahiko. He resolved on the spot to come out here again tomorrow, until the rest of the birds arrived and the trees became host to huge squabbling households of them. At that point he would continue to come out, and find a good place to sit and watch the birds as they covered the lawns too. He would also enlist Nagato in running at the flocks on the grass, just to watch them scatter like blown petals before the wind.

All this, Yahiko decided, he would tell Konan. Feeling was, in part, a matter of seeing. Getting outside to see more than the inside of her own head was exactly what was needed. Nagato was amazing. Yahiko was not surprised at all that Nagato's original would have been a leader. He would have had an advisor or two, to keep him on track, but aside from that Nagato was perfectly suited to being in charge of something. A cloud moved aside, and sunlight shone down onto Yahiko's hair. He shaded his eyes and kept looking, all the while enjoying the growing feeling of warmth on the top of his head.

Footsteps disturbed a small pebble right behind him. "Sorry," Nagato apologized unnecessarily. "We started a short debate about whether or not to take the car. It's not settled yet."

"No way!" Yahiko turned and looked fondly at Nagato, like one does at a dog that's acting silly. "We're walking. No question about it."

"Yeah…" Nagato's eyes were wide in that strange, soft way they were sometimes. Yahiko had noticed that nobody else seemed to receive this look. It was a special thing, only for the two of them. A pang brought moisture to Yahiko's eyes. That was just what Konan was missing: small things, only shared and understood between the _three_ of them. He looked past Nagato's head and saw her. A spring morning wind was blowing her cloak back from her legs as she silently crossed the ragged parking lot. She came to a stop and inhaled deeply, glancing up the street. _Yes!_ Yahiko remembered the earlier guidelines about not laughing or dancing too much.

"Can you feel it?" Nagato asked her. "The wind, I mean."

Konan brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear so it would not blow across her face. The wind changed direction to counter this tactic. "No," she said, resigning herself to this as she had to the constant rain. "The wind is very pleasant, nothing more."

Nagato explained, "I don't know if I mentioned it, but her offer was to take both of us for cloaks like she has. After that, whatever we want."

"Oh, yeah," Yahiko remembered. "Oh...Hidan was so excited to get his. It's a shame he's feeling too overwhelmed to come along. He'll probably have lots of fun with everyone else."

Nagato nodded. "We'll deal with it for the walk. Is it far?" he asked Konan.

She mentally estimated how long it had taken her and Hidan to reach the tailor's before. "Moderately. The distance to town at a slow walking pace was enough for us to have a full conversation about the differences between our world's plant life, and the distance between entering town and reaching the tailor's was enough for Hidan to elaborate on his memory problems. I would say that adds up to maybe two conversation's worth of distance."

"I've got a lot of things to talk about!" Yahiko kept himself from seeming too energetic about it in front of Konan. "I actually haven't felt the wind at all because of that."

"How was your training?" Konan asked politely as she started walking. She did not look at him, but he was not expecting her to.

"I learned a few things about my chakra." Yahiko told them of his experiment with the bush, and the results he'd gotten.

"Interesting…" Nagato thought on similar wavelengths as Yahiko. In a few short seconds or less, he would come to the same conclusions.

"That was all?"

"Well," Yahiko explained, "that wasn't all I was doing. Before I cut off its leaves, I apologized to it, and the same afterwards. Plants are awesome, and if succubi exist then wood spirits might too. I wasn't taking any chances. Do you think the library would have a book on how to show proper respect to nature spirits?"

"I was talking to Sasori while you were catching up with Samehada earlier," Nagato volunteered. "I asked him more about this idea Deidara was going on about, with us living in a video game. He said that Laurie had mentioned how this town is built strangely so that we have everything we need, and nothing more than that. So Deidara started freaking out that we might actually be in a game, and does that mean we don't have control over ourselves, but he called Hidan and Hidan said if this was a game, it was a good one, and he also said that it wasn't a game. Dei had no idea how Hidan could know anything like that, but he sounded pretty sure of himself. So he figured that he was making too big a deal of this, and talked to Sasori, and Sasori's actually noticed the same thing. Sasori had to get bike parts and tools once, and the hardware store mysteriously had all of them when there's no particular reason it should. In conclusion, yes, the library probably has any book you could possibly want or need."

"Wow." Yahiko stared up at a magnolia they were passing. It looked like it would have flowers soon, and it was a healthy and good-looking tree in any case. "I...don't know what to say about that." If he could have known how to say what he felt, he would have said that it was like being made angels in their own pocket universe, that it was amazing and strange and wonderful that something seemed to have been created just for them, that wasn't this proof that the universe at least possessed the _capacity_ to be well ordered and kind? Instead of saying any of that, because he couldn't make up the poetry to do so that fast, he laughed once more in awe.

Nagato laughed along, more quietly, and took Yahiko's hand. "If your chakra has the same effect on plants as on people," he began, "does that mean you can test your jutsu on plants? If you could learn not just how to soothe pain, but maybe _heal -_"

"- I can get more seeds, and find out who or what made those flowers grow so fast -"

"- and learn or, worst-case, make up a technique, of course -"

"- I wouldn't need to be afraid of anything. I wouldn't need to change myself to be a ninja. I wouldn't have to just get used to hurting people. I could -"

"- distract enemies, and heal friends, or heal enemies too if you want, and it would all be entirely, completely right. Nothing would be wrong at all with being a ninja."

"Yes!" Their arms swung together. Yahiko was unable to stop a long, gleeful giggle. This hope that he would be able to experience _rightness_, even in the kind of life Konan led, was refreshing. It was life-giving. It was...new.

Yahiko stopped there and probed deeper. Was rightness really so novel? _I can't find anything familiar about it. It doesn't feel at all like something I've felt before._

Konan stopped and turned back, not truly looking at Yahiko but enough that he could see she was talking to him. "No," she confirmed. "Your original did not learn medical ninjutsu."

_Whoa._ That speaking to his inner thoughts was something only Nagato had ever done before. She turned back and resumed leading them down the suburban street into town. She walked ahead of them, but Nagato and Yahiko saw something different. Yahiko curled his hand at his side, while Nagato reached out. Pulling ahead somewhat, he took Konan's left hand in his right. Her hand felt small at first, but then it curled into his with obvious strength. She dropped back and the three of them walked in one line. It felt strange - after all, this Nagato and this Yahiko had never had anyone but themselves. They brushed the strangeness away. Those words were all the proof they needed that she belonged.

"So there is such a thing?" Yahiko hardly spoke above a whisper. It was an awfully important matter.

"Yes." Konan pulled her hand free from Nagato's. "But the circumstances weren't right."

"No medical ninjas around to teach him?" Nagato guessed.

Konan nodded. "Only Jiraiya sensei taught us anything, and he was no doctor." She paused. "And after him… There wasn't time or opportunity to learn. One of the downsides of living in a war zone."

"Oh." _That's a tragedy. To be so lucky to make it through a war zone, but even that's not lucky enough to be able to live as you should… That's awful._ Yahiko wasn't the sort of person to say "good enough" to anything. If at all possible, he would always keep pushing for fullness and reaching the limits of one's potential. The idea of anyone, a version of himself included, not being able to reach their real potential was a travesty. It must be fixed as soon as possible.

He let go of Nagato's hand and looked up to consider the trees they were passing. He'd always wanted to be a little like a tree. They were a part of everything, but also above it. Such serenity was enviable. The trees waved up and down, slowly and gently, like rolling hills. A bird was perched on the end of one branch, watching them. It was mostly black but for the reddish-orange feathers covering its whole chest and belly. Yahiko smiled at it. That bird knew what was going on.

"Well," he said, "that needs to be fixed. Did you ever learn anything about medical jutsu?"

Konan was silent. Nagato heard her quietly sigh, almost inaudibly. "Not enough. It involves careful manipulation of chakra, to avoid hurting the patient, and I've seen many medics use scrolls and seals to assist them. That's all I know."

Yahiko was very happy upon hearing this. "Great! I don't have to do anything with my chakra to make it soothing, so it's probably just that way by nature. That means it would be really hard for me to accidentally hurt anyone, and my manipulation does look pretty careful. The way I controlled that stream was just how I wanted it to be, not out of control or dangerous at all. I could have a talent for it!"

"I'm not surprised," Konan murmured.

"Neither am I." Nagato had never bought into the idea that Yahiko was anything less than completely suitable in the first place. He only had to find his proper place, that was all.

Konan looked at Nagato sideways. She very much doubted they were unsurprised for the same reasons.

"Did Jiraiya sensei ever ask you two to dress as frogs?" she asked.

Nagato coughed. Yahiko fiddled with his hair. "There was the one Halloween where he helped us get costumes, and they were frog costumes. He took pictures of us in them."

Nagato coughed some more, then gave up his efforts to stop laughing. "Is there any reason he has such a thing for frogs?" he asked Konan when his breath was steady again. "We _did_ look adorable in those, didn't we?"

Konan shook her head. Of course such an incident would have happened in this world. Of course. Some things were just too important and notable not to be carried over. "He was a powerful shinobi, a Sage, and he learned from the toads. He liked to call himself the Toad Sage."

"Whoa, wait a second." Nagato actually stopped in his tracks for a brief heartbeat. "Learned from the toads? You mean...talking toads?"

"Of course." She looked at him with obvious confusion. "What other kind of toads?"

"Your world has talking animals? Wow! This world only has those in fantasy stories, the kind that you would tell to children," Yahiko explained.

"It makes sense…" Nagato thought aloud. "Animals don't talk because they have different brains from humans, and even if they were smart enough, they would still have different throats and mouths. Harnessing chakra could help a species be smarter, and if there is a technique they can use to get around the differences in throat design...it could work…"

"How many books is it possible to check out at one time?" Konan asked.

Yahiko told her, and asked what she was planning to get. "Books about animal and plant life, and the biology thereof," she answered. "Hidan told me during our last discussion that wood is very durable in this world, and now it seems animals are different too. Everything I'm hearing supports the idea that the existence of chakra has altered evolution."

"I'd keep an eye out for books on human evolution, too," Nagato suggested. "Maybe you could find interesting parallels or divergences from human evolution in your world."

"Wood isn't durable in your world?" _What do they use for building materials then? _

"Not _as_ durable." She provided examples of its limitations (ex: cannot withstand a human crashing against it), and elaborated on how quickly trees grew.

"I read a book where some trees grew really fast once," Yahiko recalled. "Although that was magic, and magic defies the rules of reality, so they were presumably just as strong as trees grown the slow way."

Thus started a vicious debate on magic, chakra, and the differences between the two. Konan had difficulty seeing any difference, Yahiko tried his best to explain his point of view but was persuaded into confusion before he could do so (he hadn't ever described the differences to himself, either; he just thought the two ideas _felt_ different somehow), while Nagato tried his hardest to ignore both of them and make up his own mind.

"I think Yahiko was right the first time," he ultimately concluded. "What we call 'magic' is any force that is in defiance of the usual laws of physics. Chakra isn't magic because it is part of the usual laws of physics in your world, and it's become part of the environment here so it might not be magic here either. The effects of magic don't affect everything and they aren't constant, or else they would become part of the normal laws of physics and would no longer be magic. Magic has to be not normal."

"So if chakra did not circulate freely, and it was only used when people used it in jutsu, it would qualify as magic?" Konan really wanted clarification on this point.

"... Sure. If it is possible to tap into something that normally is completely inactive and make it active, that might qualify as magic. But not if you're just calling down stuff that already works."

"So Hidan's powers aren't magic?" Yahiko asked. "Since his god really does exist, and all…"

"But is his god active, that's the relevant part," Nagato argued back. He was really regretting his efforts.

"This is ridiculous," Konan pointed out.

"You say ridiculous, I say fun," was Yahiko's response.

Nagato shook his head. "I'm getting a headache. We can ask somebody else about the nature of magic later. Who's got another topic?"

They passed the spot where the civilian girl had looked right at Konan and saw only a reason to be envious in silence. Then Konan remembered something. "What is Halloween?"

By the time they got to the tailor's, she and Nagato were in complete agreement that it was unfair for all the best holidays to be clustered around one quarter of the year. Christmas was fine, but what about the other two?

"Thanksgiving's for celebrating bounty, so it makes sense that it would be at harvest time, and Halloween is all about spooky things, so it has to be at a time of year where the nights are long," Yahiko protested.

"But why are they the best holidays?" Nagato countered. "Aside from Easter, there is not one holiday in the rest of the calendar that is celebrated with candy, family fun times, and other good things that anyone can get behind. We've never celebrated Fourth of July, and actually, I don't even _know_ of any holidays in the rest of the year aside from that and Easter. Why are there only two holidays in the entire rest of the year, and why is only one of those holidays any good?"

Yahiko had to struggle for an answer to that one. "People don't need holidays then? Why would you celebrate when just going outside is exactly as much fun as a party?"

"Then what about the other months of winter? January and February?" Konan countered.

"...There's Valentine's day, and… I don't know."

"See? Unfair temporal discrimination," Nagato declared. "Can we get some clothes now? I'm cold."

**Nagato**

_I have never been happier to be right in all my life. _

Yahiko was checking himself out in the mirror, enjoying the feel of his new cloak. "It's so warm!" he noted with joy.

Nagato was also checking him out. Specifically, he was paying close attention to the line where orange met black. Next he moved on to examine the shoulders. They were just begging to be examined closer, felt, squeezed, lovingly stroked…

Yahiko turned around, the bottom of the cloak flying wide, displaying his legs to maximum effect. "What do you think?" he asked.

Konan was very studiously looking elsewhere. Nagato propped himself against the wall and gave a thumbs up. _Hawa hawa hawa hawa._ This was an even better angle for his hair, but the way the cloak flattered his chest…!

"Are you okay?" Yahiko looked worried.

"Want," Nagato managed to get out. _So kissable…_ An extremely vivid mental movie played in Nagato's mind. He could see himself stepping forward, taking hold of Yahiko's arms, kissing the daylights out of him while their cloaks fluttered romantically in the breeze…

"Oh, alright." Yahiko moved out of the way of the mirror. "Sorry for hogging it. All yours!"

_He has to be messing with me. Please. He can't be serious. _Nagato stepped up to the mirror and examined the cloak, noting with relief how thick the cloth was and how the sleeves fit just tightly enough. _He's not stupid, and I'm not that good a liar. _

Yahiko continued to finger the cloak's high collar. "I can see why Hidan wouldn't like it, but I think I can live with it," he muttered to himself. "Doesn't brush my neck that badly."

Konan looked sideways at him. Very sideways.

"I can see why Hidan likes his," Yahiko repeated to Konan. "I feel impressive in it. It's probably the black; all the strongest characters wear black. Has anyone told you about Star Wars yet?"

She shook her head, so he pulled out his phone and proceeded to show her pictures of Darth Vader. "He's kind of like Nagato, actually. He can hold people up in the air and choke them with his powers. Actually, I think a lot of characters do telekinetic stuff like that. It's probably just what the Force - that's the source of his powers - is good at. Heh." Having made this comparison, Yahiko examined Nagato closely. "Yeah, it is really similar. If these things were all black, he could do a decent Vader impression."

Konan said nothing. After two hours of conversation, her energy was running low. At least it had been useful and informative conversation. The past two hours had effectively been a second, unofficial training session with these little phone devices. Sitting still was apparently the cue to use these devices as part of one's conversation, instead of talking entirely from one's personal knowledge and opinions. Nagato had looked up tailoring on Google to find out more about what the man would be doing for the next two hours, and not only shared what he found but also took it upon himself to show her the way to Wikipedia. He'd left her his phone and started a conversation with Yahiko, indicating that she should use the search bar to look up what they were talking about. Konan was now very proficient in using search bars, as their conversation had included many references to popular culture.

After her fingers grew tired, she handed the phone back and began a lecture on the geography and climate of Amegakure, the village they were all from. Yahiko's phone was now stuffed full of information about every mold species there was, since that had been one of the first things they'd asked about after she mentioned how Nagato had used a Rinnegan technique to make it rain constantly.

"But wouldn't that destroy everything with water damage and mold and such? That would be horrible for a village!" he'd exclaimed with horror. Yahiko had backed him up with the Wikipedia article on black mold. They were reluctant to say as much, but they didn't have very high opinions of the quality of Original Nagato's village leadership. That was probably why they didn't question her claim that the rain technique hadn't led to particularly bad consequences.

Konan now had a headache from the questions they had inspired. They wanted to know _everything_, and she didn't have a Wikipedia article to leave them with. She sighed and rubbed her forehead. Star Wars. Another thing that was so very important for no reason she could see, which would have to be remembered. Did they expect her to cram an entire world in her head, just like that? Did they expect she would want to?

"Um...is everything alright?" Yahiko put his phone away and looked concerned.

"I feel odd," she answered, troubled. "I appreciate your efforts to help me understand your world, but now I have two worlds in my head, and it feels very strange. All I have of my world is my own memory, but you two have so many things to tell you about your world. It feels almost threatening. I'm not sure I want to learn too much more about yours. I want to remember my home."

Yahiko went pale. "Oh, I'm sorry… Oh, gods, I…"

She shook her head. "Forget it."

He still felt horribly guilty. What had he been thinking? "I'm still going to apologize," he said softly but firmly. "Because I need to."

"What?" Nagato had waited until he was quite sure all his blood was where it should be and he wasn't going to accidentally kiss his best friend. "Did something happen?"

"We kinda pressured her with all our information and pop culture and things," Yahiko explained. "She doesn't have anything but memories, and here we are piling on."

"...Oh." Nagato looked more horrified than he ever had before. "I didn't even…"

"It's fine," Konan interrupted.

Nagato decided he'd better take her word for it. "So, I was thinking of asking some questions about my original," he stated. "You want to go and look ahead for someplace we can eat?"

"Oh, yeah!" Yahiko was more than smart enough to take hints he was offered. "Sure, I'll come back when I've found a place." He left, pausing outside the doors to shiver from the feeling of wearing his new uniform in public. He _definitely_ understood why Hidan loved it so much.

Nagato paid for the both of them, thanked the friendly man behind the counter (who, though his fingers were sore, looked forward to more of these funny customers. He refrained from asking how many they had, not wanting to seem greedy), and left with Konan. They sat down on the curb just to the side of the tailor's, and watched the traffic pass.

A moment of silence descended. Konan turned to Nagato and said, "After that day, your original grieved the same as I did. That was when I realized we felt the same."

"Really?" Nagato sighed. "Other Me must have been a better liar than I am, if it took that long."

"No," Konan disagreed. "It was all different. Your devotion did not seem out of the ordinary, because Yahiko had great dreams and everyone else believed in him too. The way you interacted with him had no imbalance in it. We were battle-forged. I think, too, that he was satisfied. There was a prophecy Jiraiya sensei had received from the oldest and wisest of the toads, which said that he would teach a child that would grow to save the world, or destroy it. Once he saw that your original had the Rinnegan, he believed it was him that the prophecy referred to. Yahiko was at least as devoted to your original as Other You was to him, because of this belief. He thought that of course Other You would be a hero, it made perfect sense, and so he was willing to support Other You wholeheartedly. Receiving that devotion may have been enough. I had no idea you'd ever wanted more."

Nagato studied small cracks in the pavement. "That does sound like Heaven," he admitted. "All I've ever wanted is for him to look at me that way. This Yahiko does think I'm smart and strong, and he thought I should be a leader well before you said I had been, but it's not… It feels different. Not satisfying."

Konan put a hand on his shoulder. "How long are you willing to live unsatisfied?"

Nagato stiffened, then relaxed. "I've been working on that. Trust me. I'm fine."

"All right, then." Konan fell silent. Her hand started to feel heavier on Nagato's shoulder. He realized she was starting to lean on him.

He shuffled closer and put his arm around her shoulders, letting her lean on him. She sighed. "How are things?" he asked gently.

"Exhausting."

She looked more than exhausted, though. Nagato swallowed and asked the question. "And Yahiko?"

"I can't tell if this is the worst or best decision I ever made." She shivered.

Nagato looked around. Yahiko still wasn't back yet. "Okay," he reassured her. "Okay. You know, I have some things to talk to Yahiko about. What I said before is still true - I'm terrible at hiding things. And in this world, there's none of that context you had to justify things. He's not stupid, so how can he be…? I think he's messing with me. When he comes back with a place to eat, how about we go, sit down, get food, and I pull him aside for an interrogation? I'll tell him you need a break. He'll understand."

"And then we go visit the library." Her voice wavered on the last word.

"Yeah." Nagato shook her to cheer her up. "We have nature spirits to befriend, remember?"

"Mm."

He patted her shoulder. "We're not trying to be hurtful."

"You are not. I'm volunteering."

Nagato opened his mouth to say something, but didn't. Konan looked at him. He shook his head. "I just realized...I volunteer too."

Konan nodded. "Yes, I have noticed we go through many of the same trials." She stopped speaking then, and joined Nagato in watching the traffic. They pretended to watch the cars passing by, but in truth, both of them were only looking out for a head of glowing orange, shining against the blackness of night.

.

**A/N: I, too, look forward to finding out how Yahiko's managed to miss all the signals. It has to be partially deliberate at this point. What's he thinking?**

**I agree with everything that was said about unfair temporal discrimination. I know that time of year needs a little evening out because the weather is unpleasant, but this is too much. On that note, I only recently realized how sad it is that I set this story at the opposite end of the year from all the cool holidays. It wasn't intentional! The date just popped into my head out of nowhere!**

**Now I want to know what Hidan does for Easter. Gah! So many questions!**

**Pretty cat pictures to all, and to all a nice life. **


	42. Stand

**A/N: Aaaand now I'****m using songs for chapter titles, apparently. "Stand" is a wonderful song by REM. It is cheerful, has a good tune, and the video looks cool. I recommend highly. **

**Muahaha you will not get to know why Yahiko is so oblivious until next chapter! Although, seriously, I already told you the reason, so it shouldn't be a difficult wait. **

**I have an essay due tomorrow that I haven't started yet! Have fun yall!**

.

Two hours earlier, as the three were leaving the tailor's to locate a nice diner in which to feed Nagato while they waited, Nagato found the time to wonder briefly how everyone back home was doing. He figured they were probably having just as much fun in their own ways, and returned to wondering how much of his low body temperature was hunger related.

**Sasori**

"Hey!" Deidara called as he followed Sasori out the front door. Ordinarily, Sasori would have slowed out of courtesy. Ordinarily, he would have offered Deidara a short explanation of where he was going and why, because the blonde seemed worried. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have been leaving in the first place.

"Hey," Deidara began as he fell into step beside Sasori. "You look like you usually do before you work a long shift, yeah, and you never tell me why or what's happening. What does it mean?"

"I think while I work," Sasori replied as they crossed the last few parking spaces to reach the shed. "Working a lot means I need to think. It's relaxing."

"Oh, hm." Deidara absorbed this information. "So...you want me to bring you a sandwich around lunchtime, or anything?"

Sasori swung the door open and entered, followed by Deidara. He was briefly very annoyed by this. Fortunately for the blonde, Dei did not have an inclination to touch everything in sight. He stayed near the doorway, looking around.

Sasori drummed his fingers on the wooden table. "Just direct Kakuzu over here. I asked him to get one of those money boxes for me."

"Huh?" Deidara was not up to date on happenings in the basement. "I thought we opened all the boxes."

"And then Konan needed space, so she used her paper powers to make the money into boxes for easy storage," Sasori explained. He drummed harder. "A sandwich might also be useful at some point."

Deidara looked at his restless fingers. "What _kind_ of thinking do you need to do, exactly?"

Sasori's other hand curled. "None of your business, go away," he snapped. _What part of "'other people' and 'thinking' are not compatible" did you miss? _

Dei took a step back. "Okay, yeah, thinking. I just...really don't want to do all the thinking I would have to if I didn't have someone to talk to, yeah."

Sasori stopped drumming. He knew exactly what part of last night's discourse the blonde was most likely bothered by, down to the very sentence. "No use waiting," he consoled sympathetically.

"Yeah, hm." Dei looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn't know exactly what, and in order to find out he would have to think about it. _Vicious cycle, that one_. He shrugged helplessly and turned to leave.

He stopped after a few steps, just outside the door. "Hey!" he called to someone while waving. "Kakuzu figured you'd be out here," he said to Sasori. "Grumpy minds think alike, yeah."

_I'm not grumpy, just not friendly. I might get grumpy in the next five minutes, though. _Sasori realized he was already sounding pretty grumpy. _Just...leave me in peace and quiet for a while._

Kakuzu came in with a green and white block in his hands. The way he shifted as he put it on the table Sasori was standing next to betrayed that it was much heavier than it looked. Kakuzu looked at Sasori and nodded towards the block, as if he thought Sasori would find it of great interest. "You aren't going to get anything out of this brick unless you use a blowtorch," he warned. "Its structural integrity is better than most metal I've seen."

Sasori did find that very interesting. "That's helpful, actually. I'm mostly using it as inspiration." He moved the money brick over to the optimal viewing position.

Kakuzu nodded. This was a wise disciple indeed. "You need any more inspiration, let me know." He left.

Sasori was shifting the box back and forth to find its best angle when his back went up like a Fourth of July sparkler. "Oh crap," he heard himself say before he knew he was going to say it.

"What?" Deidara was instantly on alert.

Sasori's mouth had gone dry. It might soon be crusted with salt. He shook his head. "Don't know. Something."

Deidara was very confused, as was Sasori. Neither of them were familiar with this phenomenon.

**In town**

The auto shop's manager stared at his empty billboard. His eyes were scary and his face was tight. He kicked the chair behind him into the far wall. "F -"

**Sasori**

"Probably nothing," he concluded. "My own thoughts. I just need to face them."

"Good luck…" Deidara tried to enthuse. He closed the door gently behind him, _finally_ leaving Sasori alone in the dark and dusty quiet. He closed his eyes and stood, breathing quietly and softly.

_Ah. Oh._ It was heavenly. The bank of small windows above him might have been dirty, giving the light that shone through a yellow tint, but it was softly tinted light. Hell, it was soft light in general. _Heaven doesn't have florescent. _Sasori knew this as fact.

He sighed, long and tiredly. The air smelled of mustiness, but beneath that mustiness, it smelled of old shed. Sasori belatedly realized that his fingers had already mapped out the grain of the wood in the table. He shivered. He didn't know why he shivered. It felt good in a bad way and bad in a good way. The only comparable feeling was yesterday's realizations that he didn't actually like the environment he had to work in. Every coin has its flipside.

_Remember the silver linings. _His near-disembodiment with the incubus had helped him defeat it in the end, and he was trying to remember to be grateful for that. Now, Sasori reminded himself that on an ordinary day, he would have been comfortable enough to try doing these calculations in his room like before, and therefore would not have discovered how comfortable this shed was. He had never taken the time to just _stand _in it before. _There's a song about that._ The fact that he could even think of such trivialities was testament to the power of soft light through a dirty window. It was like the dry equivalent of a warm bath.

Sasori opened his eyes before he could relax too much. He would have liked to keep thinking of trivialities, just for a few more minutes, but the out-of-nowhere terror was convincing proof that he would have to take those few minutes some other time. Sasori pulled the stool in the corner over to the table, and sat facing his brick of green inspiration. From his pocket, he took out an old piece of paper, unfolding it across the table. It was the price sheet he'd stolen. _I really need to return it before he notices. _For some reason, that thought produced a number of minor physical reactions Sasori couldn't identify, but felt as negative. _What? I've had other things on my mind the past few days. _

From his other pocket, he took out another piece of paper and unfolded that beside the first. It was the piece of paper on which he had jotted down estimates, guesstimates, and guesses. Sasori's eyes flicked from one paper to another and from each paper to the brick. He had gathered before him all the raw material of inspiration: vague money numbers, exact money numbers, exact money, a couple lines that hinted at something he might build someday, and his memory of having seen what he would build in his head (even if he had no memory of what the actual vision had looked like). Now all he needed was - a pencil.

He groaned, got up, and went to get a pencil. Thankfully the reception desk had been stocked with writing utensils, and nobody else was in the lobby at the time. Sasori returned to the shed and closed the door, this time taking care to memorize the way the thick door muffled all sound. It was like a mute button had been pressed for the whole space. He returned to his seat. Okay, _now_ that he had a pencil, he was ready. It was time.

Sasori turned the price sheet over and started doodling while he thought.

Two lines met to make a little V. _What the hell, Other Me. What the hell. _A horizontal line cut off both lines towards the bottom where they met. _So not only did you somehow manage to turn yourself into a puppet - not physically possible, by the way, unless you transferred your soul somewhere else and worked on your body from the outside - not only did you manage that, but at fifteen years old, too. _

He abandoned the lines, and drew a curve. _Why? Why would anyone do that to themselves? _He drew a second curve behind the first. _Konan said you wanted eternity, and I guess that is one way to get there, but why did you want eternity? What were you waiting for? _Three diagonal lines came down from the right side of both curves. _What was missing that you needed all the time in the world to get? _

Sasori propped his head on one hand as he drew a set of smaller curves, bent in the opposite direction, in front of the first ones. _What is the purpose of having time? What is the point of being alive? _He drew one line through all of the curves, linking them. _The point of being alive is to be alive. It's its own point. Process and goal together. It's one of those things where you like the journey more than the destination, and in this case it's both journey and destination at once._ Two lines, parallel to the spine, crossed the smaller curves in front. _There's a cliff at the end, but you get to enjoy the view for a while before that. I guess enjoyment is the only purpose life has by itself. All other purposes are given to it, and people enjoy having purpose, so all those other purposes are like subgoals that help get to the main one. If you get right down to it, there's only the one. _

Sasori drew circles in the smaller curves beyond the two lines, and stopped. That wasn't right. He started over, drawing the long line that would be the spine first this time. His train of thought turned accordingly. _Or were you maybe running from something? The view can hurt, too. Did you ever realize that you can't enjoy the view and hide from it too? Maybe some part of you did. You kept your heart, after all. _The two large curves in back were redrawn, as were the diagonal lines coming off of them. In place of the smaller curves in front, Sasori drew a single line. _I have no idea why I'm feeling bad for a terrorist, but you're also me, so thanks for that. Thank you so very much for that. Now I feel a little scummy, like "Is that how she's been thinking of me this whole time?" Do I want to be seen as a guy who turned himself into a puppet? No I do not. _

More lines joined the spine, and more curves joined the first two. Sasori stopped, took a deep breath, and tapped his pencil against the page. His fingers weren't moving on their own anymore. _Tap, tap, tap. _His mind wasn't moving either. _What am I doing? _

_What am I? _He left the third drawing unfinished and began sketching little blobs of lines and curves around it. _I'm not a terrorist. I'm not a puppet. I'm not a guy who uses puppet strings. I'm not a guy who lets people I know and am starting to care for be picked off by a demon. I'm Laurie's friend. I'm her training partner. I'm Deidara's friend. I'm an engineer. _One of the little sketchlets was all straight lines. He crossed it out. _No, more than an engineer. _He drew a new one with curves that tapered gracefully towards the end. _I'm a creator. _

_Yes; that's it. I like to make things. _He thought of Deidara's clay bird, which the kid was still too afraid to keep anywhere near the base. Fortunately for everyone, he was no longer keeping it in the garage. Sasori suspected Dei had taken his advice and put it back out by the lake. _Scratch, scratch, scratch. _3 little lines linked up in a row. Sasori wondered what Dei was going to do with the bird. It looked like flying lessons were scheduled in every training slot from now on. A wide, looping arc described the edge of a wing. _If training even happens. _

Sharp, jagged lines appeared at the ends of his little sketches. Sasori fought to relax his grip on the pencil. _If anything happens the way anyone thought it would. _He had said he wasn't a puppet, said he wouldn't be just a part of someone else's plan. But now, there was no plan. He couldn't be part of whatever Konan wanted from them, because she was too busy trying to keep from following everybody in her life into the abyss, apparently. She could hardly even keep her head above water. There was no plan, no certainty, no stability. _I can't be a puppet, just because there's nobody to hold the strings. So now what do I do? What do I create, and why? _

He dropped the pencil, got up, and picked up the brick. It _was_ very heavy. Sasori lifted it up and down, exercising his arm muscles. _If nothing else, this demonstrates some surprising uses for paper. _He would never have thought of paper as a construction material, but then, he had never met anyone who could control paper before. _It's novel, if nothing else. _

_Novel. _Sasori stopped lifting the brick and just held it, looking into its marbled greenness. There was one corner where the bills had somehow been arranged so that it repeated, _In we trust we trust we trust._ He had no idea what to make of that, but again, here was an arrangement he would not previously have thought possible. _Novel. _

_Who would have even thought of applying paper jutsu to money? _Until necessity had forced it, nobody. And the origin of that necessity was the coming together of two worlds. This world required creativity, and Konan's world had some very interesting material to supply.

Sasori's lips twitched. _I bet he never even thought about the uses of string. _Sasori recalled what he had done with the puppet strings in order to bind the demon. _I don't need to think of what to create; I've already done it. What else can those strings do? _He put the money brick down and sat staring at the wall. Ideas were popping into existence in his head. _The benefit of not having a plan is that I get to just make things up. There's a song about that too. _

He shook his head and looked down at the paper, to discover that he had filled the page with beetles. Some were longer, some were shorter. One of them was in his first sketch, which had been turned into a water glass. All of them had sharp claws on the ends of their jointed legs.

Sasori returned to his third sketch, adding wide circles to the ends of its feet, and sharp claws. The resulting image looked a little familiar.

_Haha. Yes!_ _Suck it, Other Me!_

All else was forgotten.

**Deidara**

Samehada licked at his face and chirred, sounding worried. "No, I'm fine," Dei mumbled. Samehada licked at his face again. Deidara's cheek was starting to get very raw from the constant licking.

The blonde was curled up next to Kisame's bed, his hands wrapped tightly around his knees and his jaw clenched shut. He stared at the tops of his knees, seemingly ignoring the outside world. Kisame and Kakuzu looked down at him with pity.

Kisame shook his head. "Right. What were we talking about again?"

Kakuzu shrugged. "I don't have any idea."

Samehada heard them and came over. He reared up on his tail and started licking Kakuzu. Kakuzu let him.

Deidara looked up. He swallowed, waited a few seconds to make sure his stomach would let that slide, and said, "You guys were talking about how your originals sounded terrible, yeah. At least none of them started and ended a war mostly by themselves!"

Kisame shuddered. "No, I can imagine it. You can fly high enough that you can't see anybody, remember? It's more difficult to hurt someone you can see, who you might even know…" His voice was shaking. "I don't understand how…"

Kakuzu thought of what Hidan would say if he were here. "We're a lot like our originals, even in personality," he recalled. "That means your original must have been similar to you, which means he was probably a wreck by the time he joined. If we're normal and decent people, and they were all much worse, then probably something happened to them."

"What the hell kind of trauma leads to serial murdering of people you have to work with, hm?!"

Kakuzu shrugged. That disturbed him too, but he would never admit such a thing. "Maybe it worsened my tendencies to dislike other people and gave him a stronger temper. Who knows?"

Kisame scowled. "You were freaking out about having tentacles, but _this _you'll defend?"

Kakuzu glared. "You heard what she said about Redhead. If someone like him could start leading a terrorist group, who knows what could happen to anyone else?"

Deidara swallowed again. He was growing increasingly pale. "Just admit it's terrible, and freaky, and there's no way in hell you'll ever be like that, yeah." He groaned and lowered his head into his knees.

Samehada turned from side to side, listening as best he could. So the humans thought they were different because other people were different from them? He groaned too. That was confusing, and he was starting to get a headache. Why did the actions of other people make them feel bad? They'd never known those other people.

Kisame gestured for Same to take a seat on the bed beside him. Same did, and made a series of questioning noises. What was wrong? Maybe Human Cousin could translate?

Kisame scratched the spot next to Same's dorsal fin, and the shark briefly stopped worrying about anything. He waggled back and forth with his tongue lolling out. Kisame sighed. Things were so much simpler for a regular shark. How could he make it simple?

"Same, it's like this. We are a lot like our originals. We have many qualities that are the same as their qualities. Therefore, hearing that they were able to be monsters makes us wonder if we are enough like them that we could be monsters too. We don't want to be capable of being monsters, so that would be a bad thing."

The shark made more questioning noises, and tilted his head at Kakuzu.

Kisame shook his head. "If you interpret the situation that way, there's no problem. If you interpret it the way I just said, there is a problem. Problems are more dangerous than not-problems, so we're naturally going to focus on and spend more time worrying about the version that is a problem."

Kakuzu crossed his arms and leaned further against the wall while he added, "I was imitating Hidan there, so Kisame's right. It is natural to think of the worst. Hidan's just not like everyone else. I have no idea what goes through his head."

Deidara tightened his grip on his knees. "I'm jealous, yeah," he admitted.

Samehada was more confused now. Why was Knowing Human different, but people they'd never met were the same? That made no sense. They knew Knowing Human, and agreed with him. They did not agree with Originals. So they had to like what was in Knowing Human's mind more than what was in Originals' mind, and how could they do that if they didn't know what was in Knowing Human's mind? His head was _really_ starting to hurt now. Same let out a high pitched whine and curled up so his tail covered his head.

Kisame stroked Same's scales. "We're not making sense to him," he said. "He probably doesn't get why we don't just go with Hidan's interpretation and stop panicking over people we've never met. I'm wondering that myself."

"Good luck, yeah," Deidara offered weakly. "I can _see _it...blasts taking out buildings and things. I saw a car go up in the air once, and it came down scrap. Everything's so _weak_…"

Kakuzu got up from his position leaning against the wall and sat next to Deidara. "What else do you see?"

It was like a dam broke. Deidara started listing off all the ways this plaster shell they called a base could come down and be reduced to nothing with no more than two or three spiders in the right places. _Why am I talking about this? Why did I even think about this? _But he couldn't stop talking, because he couldn't stop thinking. The visions just came from nowhere.

"Do you think we can control our chakra in our dreams?" he blurted out at the end of his list. His started to shake and sweat uncontrollably, and was breathing far more heavily than his activity level gave him the right to. "Ever since the bird, I've always thought that, what if I did, yeah? What if I sleepwalked or something, but instead of using my leg muscles I used my chakra, and I was dreaming about that and BLAM! And I couldn't do anything to prevent it, I mean unless she has a way to seal chakra, yeah…"

Samehada uncurled. Now _that_ made sense. He understood that sometimes humans did stuff during sleep, and sometimes the stuff they did was dangerous. He leaped off the bed and curled up against Deidara's side, making a loud rattling noise to get the blond's attention.

Deidara couldn't see Same past his visions of terror, but he could hear. He shook his head violently, sending a blond ponytail flying into Kakuzu's face. "Y-yeah?"

Samehada rattled again, deeper and more authoritatively. Dei turned to look at him. Same snapped his jaws open and shut. His pointy shark teeth made Dei start sweating all over again. _Why are his teeth so pointy? Were they that sharp yesterday? _He didn't know. He did know that he didn't know Samehada very well, and his fear was probably annoying the shark, and -

"Hey, that's a good idea," Kisame said as he caught on. "Same eats chakra, and if he needs to eat it to live, he has to be able to sense it. So if you don't want to use your chakra accidentally, he could stay with you and slurp up your chakra whenever it started to act strangely."

Samehada made a whooping sound and dipped his head up and down. Experimentally, he took Deidara's hand in his mouth and sucked on it, careful to keep his mouth open after Deidara flinched. Scared Human must be really scared to start being afraid of Samehada after a week of knowing him. Even Scared Human's chakra tasted scared. But it did not taste bad, and that was the important part. Samehada turned back to Kisame and wagged excitedly. He could do it.

"Not to mention," Kakuzu added while putting Deidara's hair back where it belonged, "it would have to be one hell of a complex sleepwalk to make a spider in your sleep. You could blow up something, but I don't believe you can make something explosive in your sleep."

"Oh." Deidara realized that was true. "So as long as I keep that bird out by the lake, I'll probably be okay, yeah."

Samehada licked him again. Kisame nodded. "Do you even sleepwalk?"

"No, but it doesn't feel like very much to blow up a thing. More of a sleep twitch, yeah." But that was only if he already had something to blow up. Dei turned red and ducked his head. _Obviously. Why didn't I think of that?_

"If only all of our problems could be solved so easily," Kakuzu grumbled.

Samehada turned his head and chirred confusion. What problems?

Kisame looked at his friend with new eyes. "He's got a point there. Our originals aren't around anymore. They can't do anything. We could take what they left us, or leave it, or do something else."

Deidara took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "A clean break, yeah?"

"Yeah." Kisame growled under his breath. "Though I have the feeling I might have nightmares about killing all of my friends. Did she really have to share that?"

"I can appreciate that she's had troubles, but that doesn't explain why starting and ending a war at the same time qualifies as an amusing anecdote," Kakuzu agreed.

"God, you were right, yeah." Deidara shook his head. "If they had any of our same morals and things, they'd have gone insane living in a world like that. Who wouldn't end up in a mental institution after living somewhere where that's normal, yeah?"

"Lucky," Kisame murmured at nothing in particular. "I mean, not really, but… Definitely has its upsides."

"What?" Deidara asked. Same also wanted to know.

"Oh, uh…" Kisame looked like he'd been caught saying something he really didn't want anyone to know he said. "Nothing."

"If there are upsides, I want to know them. Out with it," Kakuzu demanded.

Kisame sighed. "Fine. Yahiko. He's a decent kid. I'm not glad he died, but what would have happened to him if he hadn't? She was kind of right when she implied that time that he's not exactly suited for ninja life, if this is what ninja life meant."

Samehada whined. Nice Human certainly wouldn't be happy if he had to hurt people. That would be terrible for him. But Same felt differently, as if maybe that wasn't the whole case. He remembered Yahiko racing off to meet the demon, and coming back fine. Nice Human was brave. And hadn't Claw Person said everybody became less nice after he wasn't there?

The shark looked up and started to snap at the air and wiggle his body around. He growled in displeasure. Sometimes it was really frustrating to not be able to talk! He growled resentfully again and thrashed, hoping to at least say that there was something wrong with what they said.

"You don't sound happy. Is it what I just said?" Kisame guessed.

Samehada nodded, but whined to say that wasn't the full story.

Kisame growled. "Damn. You can't exactly tell me what part of what I said is bad. Does anyone know a shark to human translator?" he asked, semi-rhetorically.

Deidara shook his head.

Kakuzu shook his head as well, but added, "Hidan might be able to understand what he feels at least, and he thinks about things pretty simply as well. He might be able to tell us something."

"Wonderful. Where's Hidan?" Kisame asked skeptically. "Something about Deidara panicking not too long ago and him not showing up tells me he's not around. After Konan broke down like that, who could blame him? He's probably taking a mental health week."

Kakuzu frowned. "I think he does take the occasional break, but not a full week. We should write down what we were talking about anyway - it could be a whole day or more."

Samehada made a low sound that resembled purring and nudged Kakuzu's hand with his head. Stitch Human could be really nice. Kakuzu petted him back, and he started to make cheerful chirping noises.

Deidara smiled. "Same's really nice, yeah!" He reached out to join in the petting. "Never thought I'd ask who needs a dog when you have a shark, nope."

"A dog?" Kisame sat straighter and looked around. "Hey… She said there were wolf people somewhere around here. Wonder what they would think of this."

"Should we ask about them?" Deidara asked.

"Probably not," Kakuzu decided. "I believe Redhead mentioned having plans for Konan when he was talking with Sasori earlier. It wouldn't be a good idea to disturb them."

"Hm." Deidara grinned. "Y'know, who said we have to ask? We fought a demon! There's no reason we can't go get lost in the forest and have fun on our own, yeah!"

Samehada started wagging his tail and lolling his tongue out. Kakuzu had no objections to the forest. Kisame pulled out his phone first, confirmed that the weather was expected to hold out until late afternoon and early evening, then agreed after much piteous whining on Same's part.

"Who's least uncomfortable with flying?" Kakuzu asked. "Because if we're going to get completely lost, we might as well have fun while we're at it."

"Ugh, that's the weirdest thing you have ever said," Kisame muttered. "No way in hell am I flying."

"Alright!" Deidara cheered. "The bird seats two people without crowding, yeah!" He held up a fist for Kakuzu to bump. Kakuzu rolled his eyes and met it.

"Can you smell dog?" Kisame asked Samehada. "I tried to pick up some scent from the rock with the flowers, but I only have a shark's sense for blood, apparently. Can you smell other land-based scents?"

Samehada shook his head. He could have followed a reasonably fresh chakra trail, but the whole reason they wanted to go exploring was that nobody had been to the Wolf People's house before. Even if he could smell dog, he would've said no anyway because he wanted to get lost. Getting lost sounded fun!

"I'd better make something for Sasori first," Deidara said while getting to his feet. "You know how he gets, yeah. All 'burst of inspiration, forget to eat for a few hours' type of thing, yeah. Meet you guys at the lake."

Samehada rushed up and curled around Deidara before he left. Deidara returned the hug as best he could. He felt bad for being scared of Samehada earlier, but the shark was very forgiving. He could see why Yahiko and Samehada got along so well.

_If only I can keep them safe, yeah. _A coil of tension still lay knotted in Deidara's gut. He dared not think about who or what he wanted to keep them safe from.

.

**A/N: The other song referenced after Sasori thinks that the good part of having no plan is that he gets to make things up is "USS Make Shit Up" by Voltaire. It's an explicit parody of Star Trek and how the series just makes up solutions to anything on the fly. I highly recommend Voltaire as an artist in general. **

**The word "blond" is weird. My spelling of it is inconsistent in this chapter for the same reason my spelling of "whoa" has been inconsistent in previous chapters. As far as I can tell, those are words that just have two equally good spellings for no apparent reason. **

**I have no idea if paper would hold together that well from mere folding, but I did hear once of prison inmates wetting newspapers and stacking them under huge weights until the paper was compressed into one solid substance, from which it was possible to make shivs. The idea of paper as being awesome is plausible at least, and I can't think of anything other than boxes made of money which could plug that little plot hole, so Konan has really strange and useful powers now.**

**See ya next chapter for a look at Yahiko and why he acts funny.**


	43. What Lies Below

**A/N: Upon writing the first part of this chapter, I was sad. Upon rereading it, I was hungry. Nagato has the same food preferences as I do. Yahiko also does. Everything stated about food in this chapter is fact, and also delicious.  
**

**I name chapters what I feel like naming them, so the song theme naming is over for now. Sorry. This week's chapter is brought to you by one of my favorite TV shows, Fringe, which has an episode of the same name. **

**.**

**Nagato**

The three of them found a small table at the same diner as before and sat down. Konan looked around with what Nagato thought might be boredom in her eyes. He could see them unfocusing slightly as well. He quickly passed out the small paper menus, and they each ordered something. Konan chose a generic dish with pasta, meaty strips, and lots of vegetables, Yahiko ordered a sandwich, and Nagato felt like getting himself a giant omelet with tomatoes and onion in it. He'd really wanted one earlier, but the other two had eaten breakfast and he thought such a big dish was the kind of thing one saved for a group meal. Nagato noticed that the sandwich Yahiko was ordering was the same kind he had ordered for himself before, but with more pickles. When was the last time he'd been so hungry? He couldn't remember. He added a giant glass of orange juice to his order.

"Why didn't you eat before we left?" Yahiko asked in a low whisper after they ordered.

Nagato shrugged. "It occurred to me what was going to happen - I would talk to her, and I'd suggest going out to talk somewhere more lively afterwards. Getting food to eat facilitates things like that. I didn't count on you coming along and us getting cloaks."

"Oh. Well, it's good that you were planning to eat." Yahiko looked around. There were three other occupied tables, one of which was also waiting. They had a few minutes before their food would arrive.

"Yeah. Um…" _How do you talk about something like this? _Nagato had no idea how to sneakily angle around to approach a topic from the side. And, he realized, there was a very good reason why he didn't know how to do that. _I've never been sneaky around Yahiko before. I should be able to tell him everything. I...What am I doing?_

_He told me he wants to know about things, and I felt like such an asshole for not telling him about the succubus. I don't want to be an asshole. He deserves better._

Yahiko was looking at him, waiting for Nagato to say whatever he had begun saying. Nagato swallowed, and felt a bizarre mixture of relief and disappointment churn in his stomach. _Right. Public place, haven't thought this through. I should think about telling him how I feel later. God, but I… I don't feel ready, somehow. _The disappointment was strong, but Nagato thought he could feel something else, something that told him he should avoid giving in to the disappointment and the shame. Something wasn't right yet.

"She looks a little tired." He tilted his head to the side to indicate Konan. "You want to just...talk? At least until we get food. It might help."

Yahiko quickly looked from his peripheral vision. Konan was staring at the table, completely not interested in her surroundings. She looked slightly distressed, as if she was hoping to be somewhere else right now. He swallowed and nodded. A couple good hours was all he had the right to expect, considering what was going on. "Sure. About what?"

Nagato turned his chair to face Yahiko more directly. "Um...well...I just...was wondering about a few things. Nothing important." _The most important thing in the entire world. _

Yahiko turned his chair as well, and scooted a couple inches away from the table. He regretted not looking further, not suggesting they eat somewhere that didn't involve sitting around a table in close proximity. This was as much space as he could give her. "That's perfect."

_Oh, crap. _Nagato was in too deep to back out now and think of something genuinely unimportant, so he forged ahead. "I guess…" He still hadn't figured out how to approach the topic. _Oh… It really doesn't feel right, but I can't do it. I have to be pretty direct. Please, please, please don't let me accidentally tell him. _Again, he felt a surge of shame. But something _really_ wasn't right yet for him to confess his feelings. Nagato was beginning to think there was a deeper reason for his reluctance to confess his feelings to Yahiko. Perhaps he should ease up on himself.

"Like I said, it's not super important, so I haven't done much thinking about it. Give me a sec," he stalled. Yahiko accepted this and started looking around, fidgeting slightly as he did so. The fidgeting stopped after a few seconds, and something about the look in his eyes changed. He looked like he was trying to see things the way Konan saw them, scan his environment the shinobi way.

_Stop looking at his eyes and focus! He has beautiful eyes, but I think they're making me nervous. How do I ask…?_

A young girl, probably someone's daughter looking for an easy paycheck, brought out his glass of orange juice with a straw. Nagato marveled at the wonders drinking through a straw could work on one's ability to focus. His favorite drink certainly didn't hurt. _Mmm. _

The giant glass was an inch and a half lower when he took his mouth off the straw and faced Yahiko again. "I think I'm thinking about it because of earlier, when you asked if I was okay," he began. Yahiko stopped looking around to attend to Nagato's face. "You get a lot more worried with anyone else. I kind of expected you to come over and check my temperature, or something like that. It's a little silly to ask, but why don't you wonder about what's going on with me like you do with other people?"

Yahiko didn't answer right away. His face turned red, and his eyes skittered away from Nagato's like cockroaches before the light. His hand tightened at his side, before he gave up and let it reflexively fiddle with his hair. Nagato's mouth opened a little. _He's nervous? What did I say? Should I tell him to forget it? _

Yahiko shrugged. After thirty seconds of silence, he was looking down at the floor, he had been fiddling with his hair for the past ten of those seconds, and he knew his cheeks were visibly red. "Why don't you ask now?" he whispered. He flinched after saying it, which Nagato had to have seen.

Nagato hadn't expected that response. "Why would I ask about something you're obviously uncomfortable with?"

"Yeah!" Yahiko breathed a sigh of relief and stopped fiddling with his hair. His heartbeat eased. "Yeah. I don't ask, so you don't. We're good." He returned to looking in the direction of the kitchen and wondering when their food would be brought out.

Nagato's heart nearly stopped. _He's...afraid of me? _Was that the right interpretation? His eyes were starting to tear up. _No, no! That can't be it. Don't cry in the middle of a diner. Please. He meant something else. It's just courtesy. Treat others the way you would want to be treated. We know each other very well, so if there's something we can't explain about each other, there must be a good reason for it. He doesn't want to be rude, that's all. _

Nagato's mouth was still dry, and his eyes were still in danger of overflowing. He sipped at his orange juice and found it oddly flavourless. It would be a sin to waste juice by drinking it in such a state, so he fiddled with his hands instead. He was still horrified, and wished he hadn't asked the question. _Does he really think he needs to do that to get me not to ask about him? I would never do anything to hurt him, no matter what he told me. I love him for who he is, _whatever_ that means. _Against his baser desires, Nagato found himself looking at this issue from another point of view. _But what if he thinks the same? I don't think I avoid telling him things just because I'm afraid of how he would react. It might be a little awkward, and telling him how I feel would be scary, but I'm not scared of _him_. The problem's something else. Maybe it's the same for him? _

Yahiko sat up straighter as the young girl came out of the kitchen again with food. Nagato took the opportunity to wipe his eyes. _Dammit, what's wrong? I don't want anything to be wrong. I want to be able to talk with him. _Unfortunately, he had to admit the unspoken deal Yahiko had alluded to was a good one right now. Then why did it feel so bad?

Konan's heart beat stronger, and out of her tiredness rose concern. She'd been paying attention to their conversation. She looked at Nagato and reached out for his arm, squeezing it from sympathy. This broke him out of his thoughts. He smiled weakly as their plates were put in front of them. The serving girl snorted, causing Konan to issue her a death glare, accompanied by a pointed blast of burning chakra. The civilian girl unfortunately lacked the capacity to interact with chakra, but she jumped back at the venomous glare. She rushed off back to the kitchen as fast as she could.

Yahiko, who did have the ability to interact with chakra, found his mouth far too dry to eat with. He had felt something like this before, after making that extremely painful joke about himself being sacrificed. He realized now the pain of that experience had not come from her chakra inflicting pain on him, but her chakra itself being filled with pain. His mouth was a dusty tomb of fear because he could feel the anger in her chakra, and it was terrifying.

Nagato winced, but appreciated the gesture. The last thing he needed was for _anyone_ to think he was in a relationship with a girl. That would just be… _Wrong? Uncomfortable? Something that should be wrong, but it wouldn't be as wrong as it should be, and I wouldn't have any idea what to do with it? _Nagato tried to imagine his response to such a thing, and saw himself freezing and maybe even going along with it from nervousness. _I've never, um...told anyone before. Really? Why can't I even think "come out"? I mean...I don't have any trouble talking with Konan about it, but… Wait, have I ever specified what "it" is? Even in my thoughts? No wonder I can't tell Yahiko anything!_

The golden light of revelation dawned. _Is that what's wrong? _He tried again, and found that the orange juice tasted even better than usual. Nagato remembered that he was very hungry, and proceeded to slice up his tomato omelet with gusto.

Yahiko felt bad. Had Nagato been that hungry before? Maybe he should've taken the time to give him space to eat properly, instead of continuing conversation. Yahiko gave him space now, chewing his meaty, pickley sandwich in silence. Oh, the pickles were _good!_

Konan speared a piece of broccoli with more force than the poor thing deserved. She could handle providing sympathy, but the universe was currently demanding entirely too much. She was in no mood to help Yahiko get his priorities in order, she was not in the appropriate condition for being their go-between until they were able to be open with their secrets, and she certainly wasn't going to invest the mental energy into remembering what everyone was and was not supposed to know about. That task would be quite easy since she was so practiced at it, but being asked to expend _any _effort was, to be frank, pissing her off.

Of course, she did not vocalize any of this. Such thoughts were unbecoming of a shinobi. There was no room to indulge laziness - life was hard, and always would be. It was an established fact that reality itself was biased against shinobi, who for some reason willfully volunteered to be its sewage dumpers. Konan distantly remembered thinking that learning ninja skills would help them protect themselves. Look how well that turned out.

At any rate, she ate until her arm was threatening to go on strike, which fortunately covered most of her plate. Then she quietly exhaled, cleared her mind, and imagined a few different scenarios she could choose from.

"Um…" Nagato licked his lips free of any traces of orange juice as he looked between Konan and the few bites of food left on her plate. "Are you…?"

She raised her non-eating arm and shoved the plate towards him. He had it cleared in under five seconds.

"Huh." Yahiko looked amused. "We got a sandwich to tide you over, so this can't be all from not having breakfast."

Nagato swallowed. "I wanted the omelet before," he explained.

Konan tapped her fork against Nagato's glass twice before the serving girl had a chance to remove it. Once the girl was out of earshot, Konan began. She had made her choice.

"I couldn't help overhearing," she began. "I just want to say that either of you may discuss anything you want with me, at any time. I may or may not do something more than listen. It is not necessary to say anything about Hidan, so I will not. Do know that I talk with him often about things that matter to him."

Yahiko looked startled. She spent some more chakra in his general direction to shut him up. "Secondly, I wish to show you two more basic, foundational ninjutsu that may be surprisingly helpful in the kinds of lives you have in this world."

Unbecoming or not, she was rather unmotivated to keep hostility out of her voice at the moment. Nagato nodded. "Okay." _Best to just go along with her for now. I hope it's not too bad for Yahiko…_

Yahiko was also hoping that very much, and regretfully letting go of his vague hope that they might resume cheerful bantering and just being together. Of course, he knew there would be other such mornings, but he would be very sad to have to wait.

Konan carefully did not let her eyes flicker in Yahiko's direction as she announced their lesson plan. "We'll begin with Transformation Jutsu."

**In the forest**

Three humans and two sharks (for one of the humans was also a shark) planned to meet by the lake. That was a mistake.

Water is the universal solvent. Everything, given enough time, can become part of a given body of water. _Everything. _

Perched by the lake stood a giant clay owl, motionless. Its dead and white eyes stared out over the water, gazing at the trees on the other side. It was placed as far as one could get it from the trees without standing it in the water. This was because its maker really didn't want to find out what leaving a construct held together by chakra in water for long periods of time could do to it. Its maker was a very smart man.

The lake water lapped over its clay feet. Lakes don't normally lap, especially not if they are surrounded by windbreaks, but this one did. Its water was agitated, moving stronger and faster than normal. Almost as if it was alive.

In a manner of speaking, it was. The lake was filled with life. Every living thing in it was dead, the vitality stolen from their bodies and loosed into the water. This very same water splashed up against the ankles of the clay bird.

Haha. That could have been the setup to something very interesting. Alas, no. The widespread use of clay as the proper material with which to make golems is due simply to the fact that clay is rather flexible and, like mud, can be molded and fired into something useful. Unlike mud, clay is rather sterile. Also unlike mud, clay is much easier to infuse with explosive chakra. Once fused, it is like concrete. Concrete is not a highly reactive material.

All this is to say that nothing happened to the owl, except for what would normally happen from contact with water, which wasn't much. "Aw…" said a very disappointed demonic child, who had hoped otherwise. Disappointed, he sulked away to make his own golems.

He did, however, resolve to come back before too much longer. As its master approached, the chakra in the clay would become reactive again. Chakra was already a kind of life force. Who knew what might happen?

Certainly the thing in the lake did not. It had no consciousness to speak of. How could it know anything?

**Deidara**

"Mhm." Sasori gave no sign of hearing anything Deidara had said. He chewed his sandwich and continued to stare at his page. Deidara shivered as he noticed that it was covered with beetles and closeups of beetles. _Actually, they don't quite - Ugh, why would I want to look at that more than I have to, yeah? They can be whatever they want, but it's still creepy and crawly, yeah. _Deidara had disliked creepy and crawly things ever since he first heard that old urban legend about spiders crawling into a person's mouth while they slept. Duct-taping his mouths shut was too difficult and painful to manage, so instead he trained himself to sleep very lightly and wake up at the slightest fluttering touch anywhere near his face or hands. He still woke up from minor tickles most of the time.

"Have fun with your bugs, yeah," he said while edging towards the door.

Sasori finally looked up from his paper and shook himself. The marks he'd made were too deep and widespread; he would have to rewrite a whole new price sheet. "Hey, they've solved a lot of engineering problems more efficiently than people ever have," the engineer countered. "I could give you a book on that sometime."

Dei sighed. "Yeah, I know. It's just… I learned to be scared of them as a kid, and things you learn as a kid stay with you, yeah? My mom really messed me up about bugs, yeah."

Sasori scratched his chin with the pencil. "If it helps, I'm not literally designing a bug. It should be a lot bigger, so size and numbers aren't a problem at all."

Deidara nodded and grinned. "Thanks. Big bugs are fine, yeah. It's the little ones that might crawl where they're not supposed to that are the worst, yeah."

Sasori stopped scratching and tilted his head. "Okay, now you _have_ to tell me exactly what your mom did to mess you up. Why would you think…?"

Deidara smirked. "Sorry, but it's not as interesting as it sounds, yeah. It'll be disappointing. You'll have more fun wondering."

"You know that's not how I work." Sasori's fist clenched. "I look at how things work. That's what I've always done. I need to know how things start, what the principles are."

Deidara grinned and backed away. "Oh, come on, yeah. It's way too boring. You won't like it."

"I will get the information from you sooner or later," Sasori intoned firmly. He stabbed his pencil in Deidara's direction. "Believe it."

"Whatever, yeah." Deidara pushed the door open, and turned back before stepping out of it. "Don't starve to death from crazy engineer focus, okay?"

Sasori rolled his eyes, and smiled just a little. "Not with you around, I won't. Have fun." He raised his hand in a silent goodbye. Deidara shut the door behind him and started off towards the little stream that ran down to the lake in good spirits.

His good spirits were dampened somewhat after he had spent five minutes following the stream, when a bird in a tree on the opposite side abruptly stopped in the middle of a song. Deidara looked just in time to see it fly away. He saw nothing else that could indicate why it had flown away. He continued to follow the stream, but kept his eyes and ears trained on its other bank the whole time.

There were substantially more birds in the forest than there had been last week. Dei knew that it would still be a while before the huge flocks came back, but it was nice to hear a couple early birds singing every few trees. One such bird was singing high up in a tree above Deidara's head as he came to the lake. It abruptly stopped and flew away, leaving some feathers behind.

Deidara looked up to see a child dressed mostly in dark blue perched where the bird had been. He couldn't hear exactly what the kid was saying, but he was saying it in an exceptionally whiny tone of voice and making very disappointed arm gestures. Then the kid leaped off the tree, landed on the ground with absolutely no damage done whatsoever, and glared accusingly at Deidara.

"Aw man, if you'd just come earlier…! Now it's gonna be _forever!_ Jerk!" And the boy ran away into the forest.

Deidara waited a few seconds, before slowly edging sideways to the edge of the lake. "Do you have any idea what that was about?" he whispered.

His clay bird did not respond. Dei briefly wondered how he would have reacted if it had.

Nobody else had shown up yet, so Deidara turned around to stand next to his owl and look out over the lake. His feet detected that something about this movement wasn't normal, and Deidara looked down.

_What the fuck?_ He was standing on very wet dirt, almost mud. A quick glance all around the lake told him that it was bordered by wet dirt as far as he could see. Dei returned to his owl, and observed that its feet and ankles were wet, and sunk approximately a centimeter into the soil. The lake sat there, placid as all lakes are, its water occasionally ruffling in the breeze.

_What happened here? _The evenness of the wet ring around the lake reminded Deidara of a coastline. Had there been a strong wind, or…? _What would have happened if I'd gotten here earlier? _

He whimpered and took himself and the bird well back, away from the water. They were stationed directly beneath a branch when Kisame and Kakuzu arrived, deeply engrossed in some kind of argument.

"Bullshit," Kisame emphasized. "You _cannot possibly_ think that one was any good. Did you even see the sequel?"

"I did. Hidan invited himself along, and we tore it apart. He threw popcorn at the screen," Kakuzu recalled.

"What? The sequel was a vast improvement! It was the original that sucked."

"The box office numbers would beg to disagree." That was when Kakuzu noticed Deidara and his owl standing under a tree. He stopped and stared at them.

Samehada awoke from his light doze and was off Kisame's back just before the shark-man followed Kakuzu's gaze. The shark licked at the air all around Deidara and the owl, before making a deep rumble. Everything smelled alright, so why was Bird Person under a tree?

"You look like you're hiding from something," Kisame observed.

Kakuzu was a step ahead of him. "What the hell is that?"

Deidara stepped aside to indicate the somewhat muddy feet of his bird. "I don't know, hm. I just got here and saw his feet were wet. It looks like it goes around this whole side of the lake."

Samehada reared up and snapped his jaws as if to say "Yes sir!" before racing off to the lake. Kisame followed his companion's path with worried eyes. "Is that safe?" he asked Deidara.

"Yeah." Deidara described the child he'd seen. "He implied that if I'd gotten here earlier, something might have happened, but he was disappointed because it was too late. He didn't stay either. So, there's probably nothing interesting left to happen, yeah."

Kakuzu nodded. "That's the demon kid. I've seen him before, when I was waiting with the shark. If he's bored, it's a good sign."

Kisame continued to eye the lake suspiciously. "I'm not stepping foot into that thing until I know why and how a _lake_, of all things, can be up to funny business."

"No, no way, hm." Deidara shook his head emphatically. "I am not diving in to see what's down there, nope."

The three of them looked at the lake. Any hopes they had of Deidara's assumption being wrong were dashed when Samehada returned and nodded Yes when Dei asked if the dirt was wet all around the lake. Kisame reached out and picked Same up before the shark could go anywhere else. "Couldn't you drop something into the lake and blow it up?" he asked Deidara.

The blonde shuffled his feet. "Is that a good idea? I don't know if that would make it angry, or…"

That was a damn good question. "So," Kakuzu attempted to get back on track, "how's the bird? Can it fly?"

Deidara sent it up, and it went up, flapping its clay wings easily. "Yeah, hm. You want to go?"

"I already said I did." Kakuzu shrugged. "No reason to let a creepy lake get in the way of such a fine morning."

"Hmm…" A bell was ringing in Deidara's mind. "Creepy lake, creepy page, creepy basement… There's a lot of creepiness around, yeah? Maybe it's related?"

Kisame growled. "For the love of fuck's sake, let's _go_, already. Who the hell wants to talk about that?"

"Agreed."

"Maybe later, yeah?"

Samehada wriggled over Kisame's shoulder and onto his back as Kakuzu climbed onto the bird. "Will anything happen if I use chakra to hold onto it?" Kakuzu asked.

"I use chakra to hold on, and nothing happens," Deidara reassured. "Should be fine, yeah."

"Hey." Kisame looked up at them. "Wandering in the woods and getting lost for fun is nice and all, but I'd rather not meet a giant cliff or forest fire or anything like that. Can you two go up and tell me what you see?"

Deidara nodded, and the clay bird lifted off. "How does this thing rise straight up?" Kakuzu asked.

"No idea, hm." Dei took it forward and up, twisting in a huge spiral. It was much more fun to fly the natural way, and faster.

"Wow." Deidara double checked his ears to be sure he'd heard right. That exclamation and the gentle tone it was said in were both things he'd never imagined hearing from Kakuzu. Kakuzu leaned forward, putting a hand on Deidara's shoulder as he did so, and pointed to the north. "Do you see that thing?"

Deidara did. To the north, the forest grew visibly denser, except for one spot where the trees were cleared. They could not see what exactly was in the clearing from this height, but it had to be some kind of building. Kakuzu asked, in a more normal tone of voice, "Who would build such a thing out here, and why?" The forest continued unbroken into the north beyond the building, as far as they could see.

"Don't know, hm. But...hey, we are looking for other people, right? Dunno who built it in the first place, but what are the odds it's empty?"

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "Good point. One of us has to check it out."

"Hey." Deidara pointed east. "We've got hills, yeah!" They were visible from the air by the gentle undulations of trees. The hills probably weren't very noticeable from the ground.

Southward lay town, and south-westward lay the abandoned part of town where their base was. To the west, the trees thinned out as they passed the abandoned houses, becoming relatively open scrub. The larger river Deidara had gotten his clay from met the lake on the north shore, coming from the northwest. Kisame would have to cross it if he went north.

"We should go investigate that place," Kakuzu decided. "I'd rather not force Kisame to cross a river that connects to the lake. I wouldn't cross it either. Who knows what's going on in these woods."

Deidara nodded. "Yeah. The woods themselves seem okay, but just in case, it doesn't look as dense over to the east."

"Exactly."

They landed and told Kisame what they'd seen, as well as what they'd decided. He shrugged and pointedly did not disagree with their choice. "I'll want to know _everything_ when you two get back."

"So will everyone else," Kakuzu pointed out.

"They should if they have any brains." Kisame reached back to pat Samehada on the snout. "If there's anything hiding under the trees where we're going, we'll report that too. Just because you don't see anything from the air, that doesn't mean there's nothing hidden in a forest."

"Don't split up unless you have good reason," Kakuzu warned.

"Please. You walk down the street, and there's a demon. How dumb would I have to be to do that?" Kisame looked offended. Samehada licked his cheek reassuringly.

Kakuzu nodded. He wasn't about to say anything sickening or hokey, but he would admit it was good to have someone like Kisame around. It had been a long time since he'd really known anyone other than Hidan and his bookies. How long? Kakuzu didn't exactly know; he'd gotten used to his life.

"Ready?" Deidara asked.

"Let's go."

The white clay owl lifted up into the air again and started north. Two sharks started east. A demonic flock of birds briefly extended their senses to decide which course would be more fruitful. They merged seamlessly into two dragons and split up. One went east, and the other flew south. There was no longer anything of interest at the lake.

.

**A/N: I know I've used headers like In the forest and In town before, but I only just now realized why. It's because those sections take the viewpoint of characters who are not named, and I would normally represent an unknown name as three question marks in a row. Except, as I have said previously, this site doesn't accept multiple question marks in a row for some reason, so I can't do that. It is a relief to know why I use nonstandard headings sometimes. I've been wondering about that ever since I first used it. **

**On the downside, I have further plans for writing scenes from the viewpoint of characters whose names are unclear, and those will not be able to use location as a header. I may be forced to accept a single question mark as a (nearly invisible) header. This is gonna be a headache. **

**I've been reading creepypastas recently. If anyone is interested in scary stories like that, I recommend this site I found through TVTropes, called Gas Station Jack. It's awesome, and I'd never heard of it, which is an extreme shame. The site is about a creepy town, so keep your eyes peeled for bleedthrough into this story. There's likely to be some. **


	44. Longing

**A/N: Happy Mother's Day! To celebrate, enjoy an extra long chapter that ends on a note appropriate for the spirit of the holiday. Today, my family is planting flowers. It is a good day for planting flowers.  
**

**Have fun, yall.**

**.**

**Yahiko**

"Hey." Nagato nudged his arm to get his attention. "It's a little like old times with Jiraiya, isn't it?"

Yahiko nodded. _Is my face red? Have I been looking distracted? Is he going to ask? _

Nagato shook his head and looked forward again. "I hope he's alright, wherever he is. I'm going to ask what happened to her version of him sometime. Not today; I think tomorrow would be better. Or some time when she wants to talk more about our lives."

_Oh, thank god. I honestly have no idea what I would do if he wasn't so nice…_ Yahiko's stomach felt strange, and he worried he might be sick. Guilty feelings were really starting to eat him up inside.

_Why did I tell him that? I shouldn't even be afraid of him in the first place, but admitting it too? Why? I am such a terrible friend! _Yahiko took a moment here to remind himself that Nagato was continuing to act perfectly friendly and comfortable with him, as always, so he could stop turning red. _No. No, it's not that bad. I'm not really _scared_ of him. It's just that if asking becomes a thing we can do, I'll drown! *mental image of floodgates opening* I just need time to sort things out. I'm allowed to take time. He understands. Everything's fine. _

On that note… _What did she mean, we can talk to her about anything? Is she saying she knows about things? Would that be good or bad? Do I want anyone to share my worries with? _

Yahiko was walking while studiously studying his feet. It was his natural thinking position. He very carefully stepped over a patch of flowers as they passed a bench. _Yeah, that's a stupid question. I guess, what I mean is, do I want her to be one of those people? She was Other Me's girlfriend, so it would make sense, but…_

This question was giving him nothing more than confusion and a sense of shame, so he put it aside in favor of the much better-feeling question: _What is Transformation Jutsu?_ Wondering about this sent his pulse racing, but in a good way. The name was very exciting, but in a terrifying way. Yahiko had never been so conflicted, nor enjoyed it so much, in his life.

_I wonder if Other Me had more of a sense of self-direction. He would have had to, right? Maybe he had a better idea of who he was and what he should do. A ninja can't pay attention to what other people say as much as a normal person in this world can. If I take more ninja training, I'll probably become more self-confident. _This hypothesis removed the redness from his face and sent his heart beating in a pleasant way. Being rid of his constant monitoring of what other people thought and the persistent feeling that he was never quite up to standards was, Yahiko realized, what he wanted more than anything in the world.

Konan led them down the park trail she had first followed over a week ago. The three of them noted with delight that the scent-filled flowers, which they all secretly thought of as moon flowers, were still on the bushes and looked capable of opening. Konan turned to look at her two most painful friends, glancing from one to the other and tilting her head towards the flowers. Yahiko nodded immediately. Nagato made sure there was no miscommunication - "Meet back here tonight?" He found that there was no miscommunication. That was good.

Konan hoped the scent and light would do something for her. This silent agreement they had just done, which should have been important, seemed not to matter at all. The winding-down feeling was back, or perhaps it should be called the tranquilized feeling. Physical action was becoming less and less appealing, which was part of the reason why she was far enough ahead that she could not be expected to talk with them. She had no trouble thinking, and using her chakra was still possible. For now.

The steady rhythm of walking helped keep the tired feeling at bay, so she kept walking for as long as she could, all the way to the shop at the end of the trail. There, she sat down and took her first in-depth look at the building. It was very small and square, like a converted one-room shack. She could not see the door from her position in front of the building, so it was probably on the opposite side. The "front" of the building was what she called the huge open window someone had taken out of the wall, so that it was more like a market stall in appearance and people could buy things from outside. Naturally, this was where the snacks were.

"Um…" Yahiko had some questions about her choice of training ground. What were they going to do in the midst of all of these benches and tables? What if anyone showed up? And, most importantly, was she really going to teach them new techniques in front of the middle-aged Latina woman behind the counter?

"Can I help you?" said woman asked. Her shirt was thick and purple, perfectly matching her heavyset figure. Looped earrings dangled from her rather large earlobes. She had three rings on her friendly-looking hands, two on her left and one on her right; none of them were wedding rings.

"How has business been today?" Konan asked.

The woman wrinkled her nostrils. "Not good. I gotta say, if there's not a rush before the weather turns bad later, the whole day'll be a wash. Might as well not have opened."

Yahiko inquired about the weather. She nodded and informed him, "Oh, yeah. Forecast is predicting some heavy rain, maybe a bit of thunder, starting in the late afternoon. You can see the clouds are already moving in."

Konan shook her head. "There will be moderate rain and no thunder. That can't reasonably be called bad weather."

"You sound awfully sure about that." The woman raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"It rains often where I'm from, in all different ways. We know a lot about rain clouds," Konan explained.

The woman chuckled. "Really? You got all kinds of words for different types of rain, like Eskimos and snow?"

"Not words, but phrases, yes." Konan wondered who or what Eskimos were.

"Well, I hope you're right. Bad enough having to be inside, without having to keep all your electricity off too." She turned to Nagato and Yahiko. "You people going to buy anything?"

That was how the three of them enjoyed ice cream and introduced Konan to trail mix. The ice cream was a pleasant surprise; the woman implied that some admirer of hers had bought her some, but she hadn't wanted it right then so it'd been taking up space in an insulated container in the fridge ever since. She had many thanks for them for taking it off her hands, as it meant she could turn the fridge to a more moderate setting and not freeze her teeth off trying to eat.

As for the trail mix, Nagato had noticed Konan looking at it. Once she determined what it was for, she pronounced it an excellent idea. "Travel rations were notorious for tasting terrible," she explained. "If this could be reduced to a more compact form…"

Yahiko watched Nagato's serving of ice cream start to drip without its holder noticing. His own serving was already gone. His foot jiggered up and down. _Calm down, it's just friendly banter, like you wanted,_ said one part of him. _What is Transformation Jutsu, and when is she going to get around to teaching me?! _demanded another. Despite his deep breathing, the impatient side was winning.

He was annoyed enough to seriously consider speaking up and interrupting Nagato when Konan stood up, interrupting Nagato for him. She laid the bag of trail mix on the table. "Transformation Jutsu," she announced abruptly.

Nagato noticed the ice cream dribbling over his hand for the first time and inhaled what was left, giving himself a bad case of brain freeze. He propped himself up on the table as he stood, his other hand massaging his face while he winced. Yahiko remained at full attention, as he had been ever since Konan started to get up. Konan kept her eyes on his feet. It was far enough from his face to be comfortable, but close enough that she could see his overall body language. His posture reminded her of Deidara, when she had first met him in this world. Yahiko must have been serious about getting serious. Her own chakra warmed as a result. He would _need_ to be serious if he expected to get anything from her.

Nagato remembered to swallow and press his tongue to the back of his mouth. "What is it?" he croaked.

"Transformation Jutsu is a basic technique that provides a solid foundation for many more advanced strategies and techniques," Konan recited. She had several flashbacks to Jiraiya sensei giving them lectures like this in the very beginning of their training, when he spent a couple months catching them up to speed on what lifelong shinobi would have learned in an academy. "It can be used for deception, infiltration, giving yourself needed abilities in battle, pranks, and general entertainment."

Yahiko was badly torn between the magnetic draw of her words on his attention and the middle-aged ordinary person still watching them from the booth. _Ignore her. Konan's decided to; if I'm going to be more of what I need to be, I need to follow her lead. _He managed to mostly block the woman from his thoughts, with the help of moving behind Nagato to avoid seeing her.

"Sounds _very_ useful," Nagato said admiringly.

"Indeed." Was Yahiko seeing things, or did Konan's eyes flick in his direction as she said that? All was as it should be when he looked again.

"Transformation Jutsu is, well, exactly what it says," she told them. "These are the signs for it. Make these signs and concentrate fully on your desired form before channeling your chakra."

Nagato grinned. He followed her instructions and thought of his most cherished memory, making a last-minute decision to modify it a bit. There was a puff of air, and a giant toad that looked exactly like the costumes he and Yahiko had worn that time sat on the ground. He managed a halfway decent ribbit, and hopped past Konan in one giant leap. He let go of his chakra and resumed his regular form, laughing and doing a little dance as he went back to his previous spot.

"Crazy people." The NPC shook her head. "Couldn't you have gone for something cute?"

Yahiko did not hear this. His mind was clicking along, going from transformation to himself to… _Oh. Oh, that's what she… Oh. _He slammed his throat shut before a whimper could escape, and suddenly found himself _hyper_aware of the normal lady watching them. _Oh. _It was difficult to move or breathe all of a sudden. _OH. _

Konan reached out and caught Nagato as he passed. "Excellent demonstration," she told him. "I expect you both will practice on your own time. Now, let's move on to the basic Clone Jutsu."

As she drew out their lesson with overly long descriptions of what exactly the Clone Jutsu did, Yahiko recovered from his shock and came to some important conclusions. _There's no way that was an accident. She definitely knows something. And she's...fine with it? Dare I say _supportive_? I was right. She was definitely sending me a message in what she said earlier. _

A flicker of a memory passed and was gone. _Konan standing somewhere, walking away, firelight. A dream? _It had the slippery feel of one. This memory only reinforced Yahiko's final decision.

_If she wasn't so supportive, it might be fine. But this… It's too much. Too close. There's no way I can talk to her now. _

**Kisame**

The shark man looked up at what little of the sky he could see through gaps in the treetops. He had a bad feeling about the incoming clouds. Something in the air felt like rain. _I can give it a few hours, I think. _He was no weather forecaster, but his instincts felt right.

Samehada crashed through a bush in his excitement to return. He opened his mouth, showing Kisame a piece of hair snagged on what had been part of a bush. "Nice," Kisame praised. Same spit it out and cheerfully wagged his tail. _He's got tracking skills. Who knew? _

"Where did you find that?" Samehada rattled loudly, and raced off. Kisame followed him several hills south. _This poor bush. Looks like I've found a test subject for those pain relieving powers Yahiko has. _

Kisame examined the area around the bush for any sign of where the wolf that left the fur had come from. _Damn. If I had a more general sense of smell, I might at least be able to tell how old this clump is. _The lack of tracks in the dirt nearby seemed to indicate that it was a little too old for him to use.

Kisame looked around for his shark. The odds were very long, but desperate times… He spotted Samehada a short distance away, licking the air. "Hey, Same, can you taste any chakra around here?"

The shark whined and continued licking the air. He turned in circles as he did so. Kisame stayed where he was so as not to contaminate the scene and watched.

Samehada whined uncertainly. He wasn't sure how to answer his Human Cousin. Was it chakra, or wasn't it? It tasted like it might be edible, but not like any chakra he'd ever tasted on any of the Red Cloud People. It didn't taste like any animal chakra either, so that ruled out everything he knew.

Of course, Samehada remembered, they weren't looking specifically for chakra. They were looking for fun and interesting things. So as long as Same could taste this strange stuff and follow it, it didn't really matter if it was chakra or not, as long as it was something interesting to follow. He started to circle the spot in ever-widening spirals, looking for the direction it went.

When he was done, he slapped his fins on the ground and raised his tail to point in two directions. One direction was south, towards town. The other was east, the way they were going. Same had more than enough brains to start nudging his head east, which Kisame agreed to. They set off, with Same running as far ahead as he could to taste the trail. He soon discovered that this was going to be very hard. Apparently whatever had stood in that spot had stood there for some time, leaving a stronger impression. It took all of Same's concentration to pick up on the very, very, _very_ faint traces left from when the strange thing was moving.

"We could just head in that direction and hope to get lucky. That's what the point was," Kisame offered. Same felt bad, but was forced to agree. This trail had to be at least a day old, probably more. That was much too long in a forest crawling with new life.

His disappointment didn't last. The forest was crawling with new life, after all. Kisame sighed as he watched his shark race into a thicket, frightening several well-hidden birds. _I'm almost envious. He doesn't have very big problems to think of. Then again, the problems don't stop existing just because he can't see them, so it means he can't do much to fix them. Is ignorance bliss?_

In this way, an hour passed. Kisame figured that logically, it was better to be able to face problems than not, but emotionally the idea of just not seeing them continued to be very appealing. The appeal only got stronger as he and Samehada continued through the forest, with Same very obviously loving this little adventure. _I should have taken him before. Great, I have to deal with guilt now? _Unfortunately, yes. It was true that previous days had been rain-free, with evidence of overnight spritzes showing in the morning but nothing during the day. It was a fact that if he had taken Same out for exploration before, the shark could have spent hours and hours frolicking in the woods. _But he is a water creature, so maybe…? _Kisame realized, to his further shame, that he did not know how Samehada felt about rain.

"Hey, Same." The shark stopped growling at a squirrel and came back. The squirrel took this as a reason to make the smuggest, most egotistical sounds Kisame had ever heard. Shouldn't a squirrel in dog territory know better? Kisame figured it was his moral duty to teach it a lesson, so he picked up a small rock and threw it at the squirrel.

He hit the squirrel on its fragile head, causing it to fall off the tree trunk and lie stunned and confused on the ground below. _Some lessons are fatal. Tough luck, you little bastard._

Samehada lolled his tongue out of his mouth and imitated laughter. _Right. What did I call him for? _Oh, yeah, shame. Kisame pointed up at a gap in the treetops. "It's gonna rain. How do you feel about rain?"

Same tilted his head to one side, then the other, before shaking himself. Rain was okay. It made everything go into hiding and covered up all the interesting noises with its sound, but on the other hand, it made everything wet. It ranked a solid Okay for these reasons.

"Eh." Well, if Same didn't have any strong objections, Kisame supposed he had no reason to. "Personally, I'd rather be inside somewhere warm. I'm planning on turning back if we don't see any sign of people soon."

Fifteen minutes later, Kisame was ready to do just that when he heard Samehada go silent behind him. Before he knew it, he was turning and reaching for something he didn't have (_a weapon? The shape of my fingers suggests a knife of some kind_). Fortunately, it was just a wolf, alone and already carrying prey in its jaws. It had long, smooth, dark fur consisting of mingled dark brown, black and dark grey. Its tail was confidently up, indicating a wolf of some rank. It stood still, its ears twitching as it looked from Samehada to Kisame and back. Kisame noted that the squirrel in its jaws looked an awful lot like the one he'd injured with the rock.

Samehada was still trying to decide what to do. His first inclination was a friendly greeting, but he knew rushing up to it might not be taken as friendly. He settled for slapping his fins on the ground and making his best impression of a bark, which for all his doglike mannerisms wasn't very good. The wolf just looked at him some more.

The silence was drawing out too long for Kisame's comfort. "Hello," he offered. "We're looking for some people who smell like wolf. Do you know where they are?"

The wolf tilted its head. _Does it understand me? _Kisame had thought it might. He was not, however, prepared for it to carefully place its prey on the ground and bark at them once before running off. _The hell? Maybe it's fetching someone. _Kisame beckoned Samehada to his side. There was a squeak, and the badly traumatized squirrel thrashed its way upright before running off. _Huh. Maybe some lessons don't have to be fatal after all. That has to be a good sign about the temperament of these wolves, right? _

The wolf came back soon with two other wolves and a guy. Kisame noticed right away that all three wolves maintained some distance from the guy, who looked distinctly out of place among them. He might just have been the first they could find. Kisame saw all this before he noticed what normal people would have considered to be the guy's most distinctive feature, which caused his mouth to fall open in astonishment.

The man with the orange and black hair was similarly taken aback at the sight of Kisame, but much more so. His mouth fell open all the way and his eyes got a strange look in them, as if he wasn't quite seeing Kisame, but rather something else. Samehada crawled up Kisame's back to get a better look, and chirred at the man. He blinked, but did not stir. Tiger Person was strange, Same decided.

Kisame recovered himself quickly, and muttered, "I heard there were wolf people around. I didn't hear anything about, uh, other people."

The man swallowed. "Um, uh…" Finally, he mustered the self control to look away from the gill marks on Kisame's face. He immediately leaned forward just a little to take a closer look at the rest of Kisame. The wolves wagged their tails and relaxed. "Sorry, sorry," the guy apologized as Kisame reflexively leaned away. "I just have a lot of questions, and...and… Wait…"

He looked at Kisame with recognition in his eyes. "Are you a friend of Hidan's? He said he knew someone who was half shark."

"Huh?" said Samehada. Huh is a very versatile word. It is considered to be the best candidate for a universal word - a word that is found in all languages - because some approximation of it is what all humans vocalize when confused and surprised. Samehada wasn't human, and didn't have human vocal cords, but what he did have worked well enough. This was one word that he could say with no problems, although it did come out sounding more like "Ra?" than "Huh."

"Seconded," Kisame agreed. "Hold on, you've met Hidan? When?"

"Yesterday," the guy answered. "He was out in the forest, said that he wanted to meet the neighbors. He dug up a lot of dirt outside the front door."

_Well, he _did_ have better things to do after we got back than share that bit of news,_ Kisame reasoned. "Uh-huh. So what's your name?"

The tiger man extended a hand. "Hatake Mitsuki. I'm half-tiger, which is probably obvious."

Kisame shook with him. "Hoshigaki Kisame. I inherited this from my dad's side of the family; they might have a shark in there somewhere. This is Samehada." Same waved at Mitsuki, warbling cheerfully as well.

Mitsuki stepped back and waved. "So, ah, let me show you where we're staying. It feels like it's going to rain soon."

"Please." This guy seemed pleasant enough. Kisame was more than happy to follow him somewhere dry and hopefully warm. The wolves were very well-trained; they obviously trusted Mitsuki's opinion of Kisame, because they allowed him to go alone. They disappeared off into the trees, already back to pack business. _Even the smartest domestic dogs don't do that. I think. _At least, Kisame had never heard of any dog leaving to attend to its own business when its master didn't need it. They acted more like coworkers than dogs. _They probably are like coworkers. _The line between human and animal was obviously blurred around here.

The two humans came to a small wooden cabin, which had other buildings beyond it that Kisame only caught glimpses of. Voices came from inside. Mitsuki turned and asked Kisame to stay outside on the porch. "It's just, there are some things… We have family stuff. It has to do with sharks and other animals like that, so, anyone else would probably react like I did. I'll just prepare them, okay?"

Kisame obligingly leaned against the wall to the side of the door. "I will have _so many_ questions," he warned.

"Yeah, of course." Mitsuki nodded, and went inside. It sounded like he was interrupting the beginnings of a party. Kisame looked up at the clouds, which had turned an ominous shade of blue. It was already darker than it would have been on any other cloudy day. _There are many worse places to be at than a party,_ he decided. _They're just going to have to go without me for a while. _

_Oh crap, Deidara! _He remembered that there were people who wanted to talk with him, and sent Deidara, Kakuzu, and the group chat a quick message. To Deidara and Kakuzu, he explained he'd found shelter from the rain and was going to be staying instead of going back to the lake. To the group chat, he elaborated: _Went out today to see more of the forest and hopefully find our neighbors. I did. They work with wolves, at least some of them are half- other animals that aren't wolves, and they seem nice. Ask Hidan for further details. _Then he turned his phone off to conserve battery, and listened.

The cabin had gone quiet in the minutes he'd spent on his phone, although not entirely silent. There was the occasional one or two voices from inside. Kisame pressed his ear against the wood, but couldn't hear what they were saying. That "family stuff" sounded much too interesting. Mitsuki wouldn't have said that if he didn't want Kisame to be curious, right? _The one time I really want to be eavesdropping, and I can't… _Kisame cursed his bad luck.

The plants were starting to make noise, and a fine drizzle just barely showed on Samehada's scales as the shark sniffed around the dug-up patch of dirt. It tasted a lot like Big Person's chakra. He wondered if that was from being in one place for a long time, or from it only having been a day. Samehada was starting to wonder about his own tracking abilities. His Human Cousin liked it when he could find people's traces and follow them. How long ago could people leave traces before Samehada lost the ability to follow them? He wasn't sure. Speed of movement probably changed things, too. He wagged his tail and thought about following people's traces around the house sometime when he didn't have anything else to do. He really needed to know what he could do.

Kisame gave up on trying to eavesdrop just as Mitsuki came back outside. He was smiling and his eyes were bright. "They're really interested to see you," he told Kisame. "We've got water in case your friend would like some, and Sakumo's here. Hidan said he already knew about Sakumo when he came by."

Kisame nodded. "Konan met him on her first night in this world. That's how we know about you guys."

Mitsuki opened his mouth, and closed it. "Nope, not gonna ask now. You should get inside first so everyone can hear. I hope you don't mind, but we do have a _lot_ of questions."

"I know that feeling." _They are very kind. I guess I can try to answer as much as I can. _Samehada rattled happily at Kisame's feet. He looked down at his favorite shark, then up to see a wolf standing at the edge of the trees. It looked over the cabin, and its tail wagged like it wanted to join the party. Or maybe it was just happy to be looking after its people. Kisame looked down at Samehada again. The shark rumbled a question at him, ignoring the open door.

A wave of awfulness passed through his body again. It was familiar this time. Kisame recognized it from when he had rescued Samehada from the aquarium and briefly suspected himself of being lonely. Unlike that time, he was very conscious of the feeling easing, of feeling the urge to smile. Same...the wolves… He understood what they were now.

_Maybe I _was_ a little bit lonely,_ he conceded for probably the first time ever. _But these people would get me. They would understand. They already do - they got water for Same. _The relief was almost painful. It had been a relief to have others around who were strange, but it was a whole other level of relief to meet people who were strange in the same way as him. It seemed incomparably precious.

Kisame growled at nothing just to keep himself from surrendering to soppiness, and walked inside as if nothing at all was special. Samehada knew that was a lie. Human Cousin would probably tell him the truth later, when they were alone, after water and a good petting and talking. Same was very patient under those conditions! He raced inside, startling Mitsuki. The tiger man's head was already bursting with questions about what Samehada was, and this speed was one more to add to the pile. He resolved to lie down and take something for his oncoming headache as soon as possible. After hearing what Kisame had to say, of course.

**General**

The wood creaked invitingly, the warm air folded around him like a giant hug, and the lighting resembled firefight, though Kisame did not hear a fire. His chest squeezed again. What were these pangs for?

"Hi!" waved a man with long white hair tied back into a ponytail. He got up and went to shake Kisame's hand. "Hatake Sakumo."

"Hoshigaki Kisame," Kisame replied. "So you're that guy Konan met. She mentioned you."

Sakumo's eyes widened. "You know her? Well," he continued as he led Kisame over to a comfy chair, "did she tell you about our deal?"

Same raced into Kisame's lap as soon as he had finished sitting. He was expecting that, and already had his fingers ready for scratching. "No. Feel free to elaborate," he muttered. Samehada's tail swished, and the shark's head bumped against Kisame's ribs as he purred.

"Um." Sakumo took a few seconds to recover from his surprise. "She asked me several questions about what was happening and how things were. Or, she didn't ask, really; I just ended up telling her. In exchange for that treatment, I asked that she tell me anything she discovered about what's going on."

Someone brought over a plate of whatever they were having for dinner before Kisame could ask just what the hell he was being so evasive about. It smelled good, although Kisame didn't recognize it. He let the plate cool on the end table next to him and looked around to see who was here, instead.

The chair he sat in was next to two sofas arranged facing each other. Both were occupied, fortunately by people who knew to look completely disinterested around a stranger. A couple wore masks, although Kisame could plainly see others that tore into their food with the same teeth that he had kind of seen poking out from under Mitsuki's lips. Seeing them in action, he saw that they were additions to a normal set of teeth, they were very sharp, and it would be very bad to be on the receiving end of them. _Not so different._ The same could be said of his own pointed teeth.

Samehada lifted his head onto the arm of the chair to get a better look. He licked the air, and found it _delicious_. He let out a loud cheerful whine, and started panting while waving his fins and looking up at Kisame.

"No," Kisame decided. "This place has a kind of...atmosphere of people. It's part of the homey feeling. You get fed perfectly well; there's no need to mess with the atmosphere here."

Same sighed and gave the air just one more lick, before settling back down. He saw more wolf people (who stood out with their wolfish body language), tiger people (who looked only a little more comfortable than Human Cousin, and had strangely colored hair), and what he guessed were snake people, from their lack of hair and dark scales. Although, when one of them looked up at Kisame for a moment, Same saw that something in the way it looked at him was different from any snake he'd ever seen. The guy sitting next to that one looked like a real snake, though.

With Samehada's familiar weight on him and everyone else pretending to be interested in their food or each other, Kisame was able to relax a little. He balanced the plate on Samehada's back, nestling it between his chest and the dorsal fin so it would not move, then stuck his left arm out for the shark to nibble on.

A little relaxed did not by any stretch mean fully relaxed. He was very, very conscious of the occasional glance in his direction, and of one person watching him openly. Sakumo soon went into another room, though. That still left the people who were trying, and failing, to have a separate discussion on the couches.

The guy to Kisame's left, who the end table rightfully belonged to, cleared his throat. "Hello," he greeted them awkwardly. "I'm Satori. Snake branch." He had hair, but it didn't shine right in the soft lamplight. His green eyes were soft, like moss, and flecks of green made patches across his otherwise pale skin.

Kisame grunted. "How many branches are there?"

Satori shifted in his seat. "In general, we're just now learning more about that. We're really spread out; we've lost track of some things like that. I know, sounds hard to do, but it really is not in this family. In this room, we have four: Snake, Wolf, Tiger, and Desert Lizard."

Kisame stopped eating. "Desert Lizard?" _There are a bunch of lizards that live in the desert. Does he not know the species name? Or…_ None of the desert dwelling lizards Kisame knew of *ahem* were the right size. It would have to be one giant lizard, the size of a monitor or more, to have half human kids. He deftly avoided that mental image, and concentrated on his question.

The guy who had the unsnakelike look in his eyes nodded. "Isn't supposed to exist, but somehow does. At least, we think it does. It exists in our memories (but who knows how trustworthy those are). Anyway, it's a kind of giant predatory lizard that hunts in the desert."

"Hunts what? Camels?" Kisame's disbelief was stretching. _Could he be talking about an animal that only exists in her world? But how could an entire species be displaced here? We don't even have any deserts! And if her world has species that don't exist here, I have so many questions. _

The lizard man shrugged. "Probably, if camels were around. They're more generalist than that. You have to be willing to eat anything to survive in the desert."

Samehada warbled. Whatever Kisame might have said to continue this conversation fell by the wayside as he realized that Samehada didn't fit the description of any shark in this world either, and he ate chakra, which only existed in Konan's world. _What species is he? _Did he have a species? Konan had said Samehada was a _sword_. _What the fuck? So he could be an otherworldly species of shark, or else a sword that's somehow been given a soul and a personality and… What the fuck is going on over there?_

"Are you all right?" Satori asked.

"Get Sakumo back here. I have way too many questions about _everything_," Kisame growled.

Sakumo was back very shortly. "Masume says you have questions about everything. Is that good or bad?"

Kisame snorted. "It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad. All that matters is that it's how things are. You never actually said what you wanted to talk to her about, but I'm gonna guess you were referring to our general existence. Why we're weird, why we have the abilities we do, that sort of thing?"

Sakumo nodded.

"Well, get used to your head hurting. The more you learn, the more questions you have. That's how it works." Kisame groaned and returned his mostly empty plate to the table, freeing Samehada to lick his face in concern. He patted his shark, absorbing himself in the feeling of scales against his skin. _I have no fucking clue what I would do without him. No idea at all. _If Same was the whole world, life would be a lot more pleasant. Kisame resolved to tell Samehada how valuable he was as soon as it was quiet.

Sakumo was unsure what to make of this. Did only Kisame think like this, or was it really true for everyone? He looked around at the rest of his clan that was assembled. They looked faintly anxious as well, until Chiki, sole representative of the Desert Lizard branch, shook his head and crossed his arms. He looked around defiantly, and shrugged at Sakumo as if to say _"So what if that's true? So?"_ Sakumo nodded. They couldn't exactly back out of knowing what they were, could they?

"I take it that means you've learned a lot from knowing her," Sakumo surmised.

Kisame lowered his hand from his face. "If by that you mean had my entire world shattered and rebuilt backwards, then yes."

Samehada twisted to slap Kisame's nose with a fin. Human Cousin was being overly dramatic. Why did humans do that? Same didn't know, but it had to stop. _Do humans like being scared or sad? _That was the only hypothesis that could explain it.

Kisame rubbed his nose. _Same's right. I'm starting to sound whiny. _He shook his head. "But I do have to say, it makes for some interesting discussions. Should I start at the beginning?"

Sakumo nodded. Kisame took a minute to remember and finish his food, then began with what Konan had said on that first night. He stopped at the end of the previous weekend to see how his audience was taking this information.

The room was silent. Some of it was angry silence, some of it was baffled silence, and the rest was good ol' fashioned "get me out of here" silence. The angry ones were the first to speak.

"So we're, what, fakes?" was the lizard guy's interpretation.

Kisame shook his head. Before he could explain anything, a baffled tiger person asked, "We can do magic? Like...whenever? There have to be limits, right? When? How? How long? What kinds?"

"Whenever you want, by using chakra, for however long your chakra lasts, and -" Kisame counted in his head "- at least 6 kinds in four categories. We've got elemental jutsu, like earth and water. We've got really specific jutsu that is probably unique to a single person, like Konan's paper and Deidara's clay. And we've got illusions that Itachi can cast through his eyes, and Sasori has a thing where he makes chakra itself into a substance and shapes it. There's probably way more of each category, and probably more categories."

"...Oh." The tiger guy's eyes were starting to widen. Kisame thought that he was probably the kind of guy who liked to organize Pokemon by element and purpose. He seemed like the type to categorize. Kisame liked him already. _We could really use someone to make sense of all this. I'm gonna talk more with this guy. _

"Hey, what's your name?" he asked.

"Ruta," the guy answered.

"Nice." Kisame grinned at him. "I just now remembered that there's a lot more, too. Nagato has purple eyes with rings in them, and Konan implied that all of the really weird powers _he_ has come from those. We're talking manipulation of physics, something about reanimating dead people, summoning animals, you name it. Itachi's illusion stuff also works because he has weird eyes. Looks like there are some powers that only _individual body parts_ have, that don't belong to people at all."

"Woah," Ruta swooned. "_Awesome._" His mind was being blown open and it was _fantastic_.

"You," Kisame motioned at him," are about to become one of, if not the, most popular guy around here. Seriously."

"How soon can I meet Konan? There must be a system in place to understand all this in the world she comes from. It would be so helpful," Ruta gushed.

"Y'know, I always wondered why he didn't go into the sciences," a half-wolf whispered to his half-snake neighbor.

"God was just saving him for his true calling," the half-snake whispered back.

The half-wolf hesitated. "Y'know, all this stuff about magic and worlds is making me really hesitant to question your insistence on God."

The half-snake was disappointed. He actually enjoyed their little arguments. "Aw man…"

"Relax. You know I'll be happy to talk about how this affects our understanding of God, or whatever," the half-wolf reassured.

His serpentine friend hissed. "I haven't even thought about that. This is a theological _nightmare._"

Kisame thought, _Now would not be a good time to blab about her personal life._ Not that he had ever been in the mood for gossip, but this was a particularly bad time to have loose lips. "Konan's busy dealing with a lot of other things, but I'm sure she'll love to talk to you when she has spare time."

"Great!" Ruta's eyes were wide. Kisame could almost see his tail swishing. "Do you have anything else to talk about? Hold on, I'll get my computer. Give me a sec!" He jumped up and ran like his life was on the line.

Another one of the half-wolves cleared his throat. It was the same one who had gotten Sakumo earlier. _Masume._ "We got water earlier," he reminded Kisame.

Samehada squealed, and looked up at Kisame. His entire body trilled with joy. Kisame stared back at him. "Seriously?" _You think you have to ask? _

Samehada squealed again, and leaped off Kisame's lap to race after Masume. _Water and petting and good things! _This was the best day _ever._

"What _is_ he?" Mitsuki asked. It seemed finally safe to do so.

"Well, there are two options," Kisame replied. "The first is that he's a kind of shark that's not supposed to exist in this world. The second is that he's a magic sword that's somehow been given a soul, a personality, etcetera etcetera. Maybe both - in her world, he was a sword, and she looked surprised to see that he's a shark over here. How much further do you want me to go?"

"This is far enough." Mitsuki looked like he'd just chugged a gallon of ice cream continuously.

"Oh, that's why you looked weird earlier," Satori realized.

Sakumo started shaking his head violently, flinging his hair out in all directions like a dog shaking out his wet fur. "Okay," he gathered himself together. "Okay." He turned to Kisame. "What about now? Let's just avoid the existential questions and stick to the here and now. What's going on right now?"

"Back!" Ruta returned with a laptop computer. "Did I miss anything?"

"Samehada's either a magic sword with a soul, or an otherworldly shark like your desert lizards. I don't know which," Kisame told him.

Ruta said nothing. It would have taken needed energy away from his fingers, which were already typing at speeds that made Kisame's fingers threaten to cramp. He left him to that and turned back to Sakumo.

"Bad news." He shrugged at the wolf ninja. "We know almost nothing about the why or how. We _have _learned a lot about _what_ is going on, though. One of us, Yahiko, actually had his original die years ago. So did your original. We have no idea why you two exist now, when this cloning phenomenon wasn't even happening then.

"Secondly, we're not the only strange things around here. We're starting to get suspicious about this portion of the 'real world' we're supposedly in." Kisame accompanied that sentence with finger quotes. "Namely, we're starting to think it isn't the real world, but actually a bubble world or something. Deidara thinks it might be a video game, based on the fact that there is only one of every kind of building in town and they all have exactly what we need. Hidan says it's not a video game, but he has something wrong with him that prevents him from having information like that all the time or from knowing where it comes from, so he can't confirm shit. The demon kid down the street probably knows a lot of things, but he's not telling anyone because he likes to watch us figure things out for ourselves."

Kisame decided to be merciful and stop there. "On the plus side, we have found some patterns. We all have the exact same abilities as our originals, we all have the same basic temperament and similar features as our originals' personalities, and we even have similar relationships to each other. From what Konan can tell, there was no significant delay between their death and us showing up here. So the way it works is that they die, we show up, and we are exactly like them in every way except for the ways that would be changed by having different memories."

Sakumo fell down, going to his knees and falling backwards, so that he ended up sprawled against the corner of the couch. Kisame winced. _And that's not even close to everything. Hostile demons, gods, whatever the hell was happening with the lake earlier… I'm actually very up to date and having remarkably little trouble digesting all this. _And here he'd thought he was one of the most skeptical people in the group.

"Woah, whoa, woah." A half-tiger was shaking his head. "Are you even serious? This sounds like complete crap. It's totally unbelievable."

Kisame nodded. _This guy's reasonable. _"Yeah, it is. It completely is. I would love to not believe it. Hold on to that for as long as you can; trust me. It's so much more comfortable than having to deal with all this."

Kisame was being very serious. He really did envy this past version of himself. Unfortunately, his encouragement was having the opposite effect from what he wanted. The guy looked shaken. _Oh crap. I should have pushed him more if I wanted him to buckle down. This poor guy…_

"Who wants painkillers?" Mitsuki held up a bottle of ibuprofen he'd gotten for his headache.

Kisame got up and silently edged around the gathering of people who crowded around Mitsuki, heading in the direction Masume and Samehada had gone in. _What have I done? _He wondered if Konan had felt like this.

Masume met him at the beginning of a hallway. "Hey! He's really friendly. I had a lot of fun showing him what we have, and he splashed all over me." The half-wolf indicated his soaked clothing. "How are things?"

"Not good," Kisame replied darkly. "Ruta might like his systems, but everyone else is more interested in their real lives. Maybe I shouldn't have told them so much. Gods… I don't think this was as good an idea as it looked like."

Masume scratched behind his ear. "Can you give me a one sentence rundown?"

Kisame obliged. "There are some people who don't belong and we don't know why, reality might not be real, the gods are real and they're messing with us and we can't do anything about it, but at least we can know for certain that we're almost identical to our originals who were a bunch of bastards."

"Ah." Masume looked back down the hallway. "That sounds hard."

"Yes."

"It sounds like when you're chasing after something in a dream, and suddenly it disappears and turns into something else, and you're climbing a mountain now instead of running, and you don't know anything except that you _have_ to climb, and you're afraid because climbing is much harder than running," Masume thought aloud.

Kisame took a second look at him. "Philosophical, are we?"

"I think differently." Masume smiled proudly. "I think it'll be okay. That kind of dream isn't a nightmare. It's a dream where everything's changing, but somehow Dream You is always perfectly able to keep up. Nightmares are dreams where things aren't changing and you can't get them to, so this is actually the opposite of a nightmare. It's like dancing; you always have to keep up with the beat. This sounds fun, actually!"

Kisame was reminded strongly of Hidan. Just like with Hidan, he felt like he could almost understand, like this guy's logic was only a step ahead and if he could just _reach_, he'd understand perfectly. _I'm surrounded by freakin' Buddhas, or something._

Masume shrugged. "Of course, that's how I think. Just because I think differently doesn't mean I feel differently. Just give me a few days to catch up, work all the shivers out, that sort of thing. But I think it'll ultimately be okay." He took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. His breath trembled on the exhale. He wriggled his shoulders, whispered, "Okay," and went to join the others.

"Oh, thank god," Kisame muttered to nobody. _I was starting to get worried there. One Hidan is enough. I don't think it's possible to have two without going a little insane over time. _He continued down the hallway in search of Samehada.

A cheerful warbling, interspersed with the occasional roar, guided him to the exact room. He stood outside the door and looked in. It was a bathroom with a nice, rounded tub taking up half the floor space. Another quarter of the floor around it was now soaking wet. Samehada trilled a happy tune as he nudged a rubber ducky around the tub. It sounded like he was singing to it.

The singing and the nudging reminded Kisame of something he had learned about killer whales. They used their noses to push their babies to the water's surface for their first breath. Sinking beneath the water for minimal surface disturbance, Same swam to the opposite side of the ducky and nudged it gently away from the edge of the tub, guiding it to a more open area. He continued making low sounds that sounded like singing the whole time. The ducky rolled from side to side as little fishbones of water crossed the surface below it, and obeyed.

Kisame swallowed past a sudden tightness in his throat. He stepped back beyond the doorway, careful not to draw attention. Silently, he watched Samehada care for the rubber ducky. His chest ached.

_Yeah. He was right. Everything really will be okay. _Watching his shark guide and play with a rubber duck like it was a child convinced Kisame that, as long as this could happen, the world had to be all right. Sometimes, once in a while, Same could be the whole world.

.

**A/N: *sniff* Ducky ducky. **

**Whoops, it appears I accidentally let an Author Avatar through. Of course, _every_ character in this story is a partial avatar, but Ruta got a particularly large part. After writing his scene, I realized that is exactly how I would react to news like this. I worry that I might be overcompensating by having the other characters react as they do. **

**Speaking of character actions that might not be working, Konan's condition is not being represented accurately. I'm writing her based off of what I feel like sometimes. However, feeling like that prevents me from being able to write, so the majority of all scenes are written when I don't feel like that. When I don't feel like that, it is difficult to understand what did I feel like and how was I thinking when I did. What I do remember is that I hate interaction and get really annoyed and snap at anybody who tries to talk with me when I feel like that. Obviously, a character that becomes incommunicado is not very useful for storytelling, especially considering that sudden changes in personality are not part of what I'm trying to convey. Therefore, although she is said to not like talking and be too tired for pleasant interaction, Konan will continue to talk and interact with other people. Maybe she's trained herself to act pleasant even when she's tired, or she has unusual willpower. I don't know.**

***sniff* So adorable. I love these two so much! So adorable!**


	45. Catch A Falling Star

**A/N: "Catch A Falling Star" is the song that all the kids sing during the Christmas recital at the end of Love Actually. And I do mean it is _that_ song - when I looked the song up on Youtube and found that the original singer was a grown person with a deep voice, it sounded utterly wrong. The only version of the song I will listen to is a recording of a children's choir singing it. Some things are like that - they just get stuck as the first version you heard, and no other version sounds right.  
**

**This song has nothing to do with the content of this chapter. It just popped into my head as I was writing the last few paragraphs, and I believe that if the content of a chapter causes a certain song to get stuck in my head, it's probably for a really good reason. I think the general tone of the song is what reminded me. **

**Same's tune does not come from anywhere that I know of. You can just make up a tune that fits the words. **

**.**

**Samehada**

_Swim through the water, feel it in your scales. Swim through the water, feel it in your teeth. Swim after the light, and when you're far away, you'll find that you were home the whole time…_

The water sloshed gently against the sides of the rubber ducky as Samehada guided it around the tub. It probably couldn't hear him, but that was alright. The song was his and his alone. He had no memory of ever hearing it, or of anyone he could have heard it from, so it must be his. The song made Same feel gentle, and the rubber ducky against his snout feel _right_. The sound of the rain against the wall outside only made it more important to be warm to this little ducky.

After the water was cool and Same took a break to let his singing voice rest, he saw movement from the doorway. "Hey," Kisame said. His voice was different than usual. Samehada immediately got out of the tub and climbed up to lick his Human Cousin on the face. Was something wrong? Human Cousin sounded a little sad. Samehada licked anxiously and chirred _worried, you?_

Kisame huffed. "Relax, I'm fine." His voice was back to normal. Same believed him and crawled forward so that Kisame was holding him in his arms. Samehada's tail wagged back and forth with happiness as he looked into Kisame's face. _This house is a good place! _He pointed his tail at the tub with the rubber ducky to emphasize his point. _So happy we came here. So happy. Is it a good place for you? _He made short questioning sounds at Kisame.

Kisame smiled. "I gotta say, this is one hell of a place to wait out a storm. The people here are...nice." Samehada chirped with joy. Usually Human Cousin had to meet someone several times to say that! The Animal People had to be very special to earn such a compliment so fast.

"Yeah…" Kisame looked uneasy. He glanced backwards, then quietly eased the door shut. Samehada stopped wagging his tail. _Something important. What is it? _

Kisame moved away from the door, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He scratched Samehada's dorsal fin before speaking. Samehada fought to keep this from affecting his concentration. Kisame was saying, "I don't really know what to think about them," in a quiet whisper like he didn't want anyone to overhear.

Samehada tilted his head. Hadn't Human Cousin just said they were nice? He didn't say that about people he didn't know.

Kisame took another breath. He seemed to be having trouble speaking. Samehada licked at his chin. His chakra was moving strangely. _Scared? Why is Human Cousin scared? _Samehada started to show his teeth. Was someone scaring Human Cousin? Who did he need to bite to make them stop? _Nobody scares Human Cousin! _

Kisame blinked. "No, no… You don't need to bite anybody. I just… It's another one of those weird human things like what made your head hurt earlier. I'm just thinking."

Samehada stopped the growl that was creeping up his throat and whined, confused. What could Human Cousin be thinking about that was scary? Could he help, like he'd helped Bird Person earlier?

"Same…" Kisame looked towards the door again and listened closely. He heard nothing, but still dropped his voice to a whisper so low that Samehada had to strain to make out his words. "You're really the only company I have. The only one who's...like me. You're special, Same."

Samehada's tail started wagging again. He didn't even notice. _Me? Special? Good things! I like good things! _He panted quietly, careful not to drown out anything more Human Cousin might be about to say.

Kisame made a small nervous laugh, which he immediately grimaced at. "Yeah, you are. I don't…" He glanced at the door and listened again. "I don't have anyone else who's kind of shark and kind of human, like I am. I'm not really either of those things. Aside from you, I'm alone."

Kisame could say nothing more beyond that. The importance of that statement stung. He hugged Samehada closer before it could sting anymore, and tried to regain his composure. It was a true statement, so why did it matter? Why had he never admitted it before?

Samehada would normally have started making comforting noises by now, but he was quiet. He was thinking. It wasn't something Samehada needed to do often, unlike his human friends who seemed to need to think every day at a minimum, but sometimes the shark could feel a deeper importance underneath something. He felt a deeper meaning to Kisame's words now.

_Alone? _Samehada remembered the Tank Cousins. They did not say much to him, or to each other, but Samehada knew there was something about the tank that discouraged talking. It was possible the Tank Cousins were like him but couldn't show it, because the tank stopped them from talking. The tank wasn't a good place. Either way, he supposed, the Tank Cousins weren't able to act like him. Did it matter what the reason was?

Samehada conceded that Human Cousin had a point about the Tank Cousins. But what about the other humans? They were strong, and used chakra like Human Cousin, and talked like him, and they were good friends to Samehada. He rattled _question, answer_ at Kisame and waited for Human Cousin to explain.

Kisame could tell Same probably didn't know why he would be upset. He didn't either. What was he feeling like this for?

"I guess it's the way they live," Kisame tried to answer himself. "Those wolves that stay with them and look after them, they remind me of you. I've never seen any other person and animal work together like that. They knew to get water right away for you, and treat us like two guests instead of one, where most people would think you were just a pet or something. You're not a pet, you're my best buddy. And I think they know that. I finally don't have to explain or prove anything."

Kisame's eyes widened as he remembered something. "Hey, Same. There's something I just remembered about the aquarium. I've never told you because it sounds really weird to say, but maybe it's less weird now. The thing is, I've never really thought of the aquarium as my job. What I do, feeding the sharks, it's more like…" He struggled to come up with the words. "It feels like being around family. The other sharks are, well, _other_ sharks. They feel different to think about than any other animal. They -"

Samehada cut him off with vigorous nodding. The shark understood perfectly. _Why doesn't Human Cousin call them all Cousins, if he feels the same way? _Samehada had wondered this before, and thought that perhaps Human Cousin did not have that basic, gut-level feeling of recognition, of sameness, with the other Cousins. He'd worked out a long time ago that the word cousin referred to people who were related to you, but not closely or in any specific way. It was just a recognition that in some way, they were similar to you. Samehada wagged his tail. It was very good to hear that Human Cousin did have the same recognition, after all! But then, why didn't he acknowledge them as cousins?

Kisame fondly patted the side of Samehada's head. "You know what I'm talking about?" The shark nodded again. "Good, because I don't."

He stretched his shoulders, rolling them in exaggerated circles. "I think it has to do with that, too. I've never heard of that feeling anywhere else. Other people might not experience it, or if they do, only towards other people. They wouldn't understand about an _animal_. But these people…" He looked at the door once more, this time without wariness. "I think they get it. They're the same."

Samehada's mouth fell open. This was a new idea. _They are the same as Human Cousin? They are...Cousins? Cousins with Human Cousin, but not with me?_ The shark had never considered it impossible that Human Cousin might have other, human Cousins that he didn't share with Samehada. The shark had simply never considered the possibility at all.

_So Human Cousin is Cousins with Animal People, and Animal people are Cousins with wolves and tigers and lizards, but only the Wolf People are Cousins with wolves even though any of the Animal People can work with them… _His tongue lolled out of his mouth as Samehada's ideas of who was related to who expanded. This explained what the humans felt when they had to sit and do all of their thinking. They must be constantly expanding their ideas and making connections between things. How did they not already have the whole world tied together into one thing, if they were making so many connections?

Kisame stared at his shark with something like wonder. "I would give a lot of things to read your mind right now."

Samehada rattled _amusement._ Kisame shook his head. "No, I mean it. Have I ever told you? You're...important. You're the one I can talk to. You're comforting. You're _really important. _I'm glad you're...everything. You're everything." He grimaced, looking disgusted at how soppy he was getting. "Maybe company isn't overrated," he managed to get out. Kisame was suddenly nauseous. How had this disgusting soppiness caught him so quickly?

Even if this _was_ Samehada, he couldn't tolerate this level of affection any longer. Kisame put Samehada down on the floor and shivered. "So, anyway, I told them a little more than I should have about all the weird things we've learned. They were lining up for headache medicine when I left. We should see how they're doing."

Samehada let out the most pain-filled whine Kisame had ever heard. It sounded like a vital part of him was being torn out. That was exactly what Samehada felt like. Did they have to go? He didn't want to go yet! He _**wanted**__…_ But Human Cousin was done; he couldn't be affectionate anymore. Samehada quieted down to sniffles and climbed onto Kisame's back. He wished…

Kisame stood still where he was. What had he done to hurt Samehada? He'd wanted to tell his shark how much his companionship meant, to make Samehada feel appreciated and loved. He hadn't meant to do anything that would turn that belly-up. Could he make amends?

"Same…" he started. He reached up to softly touch the shark's nose. "I'm sorry. What's wrong?"

Samehada stopped whimpering and nuzzled his hand back. Human Cousin shouldn't feel bad for being himself; it was okay for him not to be able to be as affectionate as Samehada wanted. _Don't feel bad. You're not bad. More affection later. It's over already. _He nudged Kisame's hand aside and licked the side of his face.

Kisame felt ridiculous. "Before I saw you, I was arguing with myself over whether I should take you out of the aquarium that day. Then I did, and I realized it wasn't my choice. You needed out, and that was that. It's the same now, isn't it? You need to not be left alone when I'm at work. If you're going to matter to me, I need to be open about it, and that's that. I can't just hide you away with the nearest guy. I'm sorry, Same. I'll make it up to you."

Samehada warbled cheerfully. As much as the tank was dreary and not good for talking, he did miss the Tank Cousins. His happy rumbling vibrated through Kisame's back.

Kisame turned to open the door and see how the Hatake Clan was digesting everything he'd told them, but stopped. Ever since he had first thought of this almost a week ago, he had been unable to fully stop wondering. "Same, how did you survive while I was on 'vacation?' You must have gone hungry without me to let you chew on my arm."

He had indeed. Those weren't happy days. Samehada whimpered. But the days had gotten better after Thinking Person showed up, and Samehada had looked distressed at him, and Thinking Person had started coming by to interact with Samehada more often. Thinking Person had nice-tasting chakra. Samehada waved his tail back and forth as he realized that he'd never told Human Cousin what Thinking Person had done for him. Human Cousin had to know how kind his friend was; Samehada resolved to tell him as soon as possible.

Kisame heard the whimpering end after a few short seconds, and figured that Samehada must have figured out some way to get what he needed. "I'm glad you didn't starve. The idea's been freaking me out ever since I realized that you needed to eat chakra. I'll never leave you with nothing again, I promise." He placed a hand firmly on Samehada's snout to seal his vow.

Samehada climbed a little higher on Kisame's back so he could bury his snout in the shark man's hair. Kisame chuckled, and finally opened the door and left.

**Kisame**

They both immediately sensed that someone was waiting for them. Kisame's guard went up immediately. His mind was prepared for an attack before he realized what was happening. _What the hell? I'm not being attacked!_ He forced himself to relax, although his body still continued to ready for danger, heedless of his wishes. _It's just somebody wanting to talk to me, who wasn't going to intrude on me and Samehada to do it. Calm down already!_

It was Ruta. The half-tiger was standing awkwardly at the end of the hallway, glancing around and wavering from side to side. His laptop was under his arm. "Hey!" he brightened when he saw Kisame. "Um, about what you said, it could take a while."

"What could?"

Ruta shrugged. "What you said about being the most popular guy around. I can kind of see why, since half the confusion you described can be solved with some organization, but nobody wanted to hear more when I started talking about it. It's a little too fast, I think."

"Yeah, it is. I've been wondering if I should have said that much." Kisame tilted his head, inviting Ruta to walk with him. "So, what, they banished you from their company?"

"No, I just left. Figured they would be grateful, and it gives me more time for thinking," Ruta answered.

"Thinking about what?" Kisame was surprised that Ruta had anything left in his head after the speed he'd been typing at earlier.

Ruta smiled before speaking. Kisame had a flash of premonition that he would soon recognize this smile as being a harbinger of many things. "Well, it has to do with what you said about eyes. You said that it seems possible that individual body parts can have their own powers, but I think it's more limited than that. I mean, everyone knows the eyes are the windows to the soul, and all that. What if eyes can have special powers because they're sacred? Not _sacred_ sacred, I just mean they have some spiritual connection. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; the whole idea of generating our own magic energy just struck me as the kind of thing that would have spiritual or mystical connotations. I mean, where else would magic come from inside a human body?"

Kisame held up a hand to cut him off. "Okay, okay. First of all, you're completely correct. Konan told us a couple days ago that chakra is half physical, half spiritual, and souls definitely exist in her world. I can ask about the eyes. But, seriously. How are you handling all of this so well?" He stopped and searched Ruta's face, sure that the tiger man must be hiding signs of discomfort. "This is news that changes everything we know about the world. _Our_ world. That we _live_ in. How can you be taking this so easily?"

Ruta did develop signs of discomfort now, but not any of the ones that Kisame had been expecting. "Well, that's because it's not really true, I think."

"What isn't?" Kisame pressed.

"The real world, to me, is a bunch of interesting things that I can study and look at," Ruta explained. "Fiction, or fantasy, or things like that are also a bunch of interesting things that I can look at. I don't see any difference, really. Why can't magic be real? As long as it makes some kind of sense, I have no reason to think it can't be. I really like having more cool things to study in one place, actually. That's why I like hearing about all this."

Kisame stared and stared, but could not find anything amiss. Ruta was completely serious, and now that he had finished saying what he had said, completely comfortable. "You mean," Kisame pieced together a rather strange conclusion, "the part about you living in the real world isn't really true?"

Ruta blushed and brushed some of his long brown hair behind one ear, but did not waver. "I'm more a resident of my mind."

Samehada crawled directly over Kisame's shoulder to take a closer look at Ruta himself. If he was correct, Curious Tiger Person was saying that he thought even more than other humans did, so much more that Human Cousin was surprised. Samehada did less thinking and more living in the here and now than most humans. That made Curious Tiger Person his opposite. The shark was amazed. What was it like to think so much? Did Curious Tiger Person have the world all bound up into one thing already? Samehada imagined it; a giant ball that looked an awful lot like a ball of multicolored rubber bands, tightly strung together. Another ball approached, with its own tightly bound rubber bands. And then, before you could even see it, the first ball reached strings across and absorbed the other, becoming one big happy ball of connections that all made sense. The _speed_ was breathtaking; Curious Tiger Person had only just heard about all of this, and already he'd made all the connections he'd been given and was reaching out for more. Amazing!

Samehada stopped here. He only realized now that this scenario didn't make much sense. If having ideas was like having a bunch of rubber bands bound together, then how did they absorb other ideas? Wouldn't some of the previous ones have to come apart? If that was true, thinking should hurt because it meant breaking things. Samehada recalled that, for most of the humans he knew, thinking _did_ hurt. Well, maybe if Curious Tiger Person thought faster, he didn't spend a lot of time with broken bands because he could tie them together again faster, Samehada reasoned. The hurting would be too quick to really hurt, more like getting a needle jab than anything painful. So that was how it was possible to think so much!

Ruta patted Samehada on the nose very gently. "What does she think of me?"

"Same lives in the here and now, just the opposite of how you live. He probably understands you even less than I do, and I don't understand you at all." Then Kisame realized what the tiger man had actually said. "Wait, she?"

"Yeah." Ruta looked up and drew his hand back just an inch. "Is that not right? I thought…"

Kisame opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I don't know," he admitted. "How would you tell with all these scales in the way? It was just a surprise because I've always called him 'he.'"

"Oh." Ruta resumed patting Samehada on the snout. The shark licked his hand, and he giggled. "I just thought to call her 'she' because, well… You two seem really affectionate and all…"

Kisame froze. _What the - what - do things work like that around here?! _A blended smoothie of emotions passed over his face, ultimately expressing themselves in gently pulling Samehada back. "Uh, no."

Samehada allowed himself to be pulled back onto Kisame's shoulder. Was Curious Tiger Person saying that he thought… Samehada's heart beat faster. But then Human Cousin sounded…

Ruta drew his entire body back. Resident of the real world or not, he knew when other people were having a bad reaction to him. "Oh, well… Um… I just… It's not weird. Not if you're the same species."

Kisame put up another hand. "No fucking way. I just… No." He turned and walked away, leaving Ruta and this general topic far behind. Samehada made a questioning warble.

"I only mentioned that to you, and I'm not ready to mention anything to anyone else yet," Kisame answered. _I know I just ten minutes ago said that sharks looked more like other people than animals to me, but no way in hell am I going to take it that far. I might be sharklike, but I wouldn't say I am one. Not yet. Who the hell does he think he is to tell me what I am? _

Masume was the next Hatake to greet Kisame. He raised a hand and waved from where he was sitting on the arm of one of the couches. "Hey." He left the couch and walked over, leaving the two guys next to him to continue their squabbling. They sounded oddly relieved as they argued with each other, and the half snake laughed at a sarcastic joke the half wolf made. Sakumo and Mitsuki whispered together on the opposite couch, and almost everyone else who had been present was sitting in a circle on the ground on the far side of the couches, most of them occupying themselves with eating or drinking something. The half lizard leaned against the wall near this group, scanning the whole room with his eyes.

Masume looked briefly past Kisame. "How's Ruta? I know he was feeling kind of rejected after nobody wanted to talk with him."

Kisame was at a loss for words. How did one go about describing a person like Ruta? "I don't get him. He told me it's easy to think about real people doing magic because he lives in his mind, so he wasn't too attached to reality anyway. But… There has to be _something_ real he holds onto. He's not psychotic, is he?"

"No, no," Masume reassured. "He just thinks differently. He likes to watch himself, just like you might like to watch someone else. That's all. I like to think about the future and I see things in terms of big ideas and meanings. It's just different. There's nothing _wrong_ with him. I'm really insulted that you would ask if my best friend's psychotic."

_Oh, crap, that is insulting. _Kisame remembered realizing his thoughts as he was preparing to free Samehada were insulting too. _Wow. When did my thoughts get so mean? I need to spend more time with other people._

"Yes, it is. I'm sorry," Kisame apologized. "Sorry. I just don't have that kind of distance from reality. It sounds like something strange and abnormal to me. I didn't mean to imply he was anything else. I still think he is going to be the most popular guy around here, once everyone's on board with getting this information organized."

Masume smiled weakly. "Yeah. Once he gets his hands on _anything_ in need of thinking about, it turns into a science." He smiled more broadly at Samehada. "Hey, how was your bath? Did Ducky act friendly?"

The shark stuck his tongue out and panted. Ducky was very, very nice. He liked Ducky. He should get a Ducky of his own.

_He sure did enjoy having something to play with. _Kisame asked, "Hey, Same, would you like it if I got you a duck, or something else that you could play with in the water?" Samehada squealed and gave the entire left half of Kisame's head, including his hair, a thorough tongue bath. "I'll take that as a Yes."

The tongue bath reminded him of unpleasant things, though. "Does Ruta's thinking differently extend to _this_?" he asked of Masume. "He implied that he thought there was something else going on between me and Samehada. There isn't. But does anyone else think that?"

Masume turned red. "Um, yeah, there might be some others who think that. In all fairness, if a wolf crawled into someone's lap, we'd interpret that to mean something, just because wolves don't interact like that during play or any other context. Are the social norms of sharks different?"

"I don't know, but I know the social norms of me and Samehada are different." Kisame recognized that he was starting to growl under his words. He didn't care. "Besides, I'm not part of a whole family that considers being with animals normal. I'm not used to that, and I don't think of myself as a shark at all. Why the fuck would anyone think I'd do something like _that?"_

Samehada whimpered. He didn't like the upset way Human Cousin was sounding. Was this the reason why Human Cousin wouldn't call the other sharks Cousins? Samehada rumbled directly into Kisame's ear, hoping that Kisame would take it as a reminder of what he'd promised Samehada earlier. He couldn't be Samehada's friend and hide him away, so he couldn't recognize his Cousins and refuse to acknowledge them, either.

_What am I saying? How can I say that Same's so important to me, and then say that I'm not like him? _Kisame's frustration increased as he got increasingly annoyed at himself, as well as everyone else. His hands curled. "I don't even_ have _a frickin' family like you people do. Why would I think of myself like anyone else at all?!"

He stopped to catch his breath and try to calm down, and realized the room was silent. He'd raised his voice quite a lot in his frustration. Masume looked startled. Samehada was still. Kisame could feel eyes boring into him from the couches.

He had a split second in which to decide how he was going to react. Kisame's still-tightened fist made the decision for him. "I don't have any clue where my family came from. I never asked. I have no idea why I look like a shark. And I've never met anyone else who wasn't fully human. Until today," he added in a whisper. His hand relaxed. _I'm envious. When did I start envying them? I've never wished I knew any of this before. Why now? _

Masume's startled look softened. He glanced at the shark on Kisame's back before giving Kisame as big a hug as he could manage. Kisame froze, offering no resistance but not returning the hug either. _What the - _Masume whispered, "It's okay," and Kisame started to actually believe him. _This is kind of nice. _The rain drummed on the roof above, and Kisame remembered that he was inside, somewhere nice and warm and comforting. _They understand. _His arms and legs tensed even further, and he still did not make any move to return the hug. Some instinct commanded that he avoid doing so.

_Why? They're trying to be nice. I just told them about my family. Why can't I hug him back? _Where did that instinct come from? Kisame couldn't remember anything that could reasonably have caused it. What world was that instinct meant for? Did it even apply here? Kisame called up all the anger and righteous defiance he could muster. _Other Me, if you're messing me up again, I'm having none of it. Go kill someone else's friends. __**Go fuck yourself.**_ With this anger, he shoved aside all forms of self-preservation, including that form. He raised one arm and patted Masume on the shoulder.

Masume released him and laughed. "You and Same can stop by any time. Really."

"Definitely," Sakumo agreed. Dropping whatever he had been doing previously, he came over to stand beside Kisame. "It might just be a wolf thing, but I don't like the idea of someone without a pack. I'm sorry to hear about your family."

Samehada rumbled, a deep, heartfelt purr that vibrated through Kisame's back. The shark man himself was completely out of words. He'd never imagined himself in a situation like this. He'd never imagined anyone in a situation like this. This was unreal, like something that might happen in a movie or a book written by some guy who wanted to rake in money writing a feel-good piece that gave readers or viewers the warm and fuzzies. It wasn't real. Except, as far as Kisame could tell, he was in fact hearing those words with his physically existing ears. This led him to question the reality of his ears.

"Uh...thanks," he heard himself say. It sounded mechanical, stiff, and like it was coming from a great distance. _You know what, I think Samehada could use more bathtime. He did sound heartbroken to leave, after all. Yes. _His body, too, seemed to be at a great distance as he turned away and headed back to the tub with the rubber ducky in it. _No way. No fucking way. I'll make sense of this somehow, just not there with everyone around. _Kisame was aware of his heart beating quickly, and various pleasant and unpleasant sensations all across his body. His throat was tight, making his fast breathing difficult to sustain. _I wish making sense of things was as easy as it is for Ruta. _

Right on cue, he passed the tiger man in question, who had stayed in his former position but heard everything regardless. Kisame spared him a glance. Ruta looked at him with great concern. _You know, I think I understand a little. _Right now, Kisame didn't give much of a damn what was supposed to be real and what was supposed to be fiction. What he'd just experienced was exactly as preposterous as riding a dragon. _No, riding a dragon would be more realistic. _If actually having a roomful of people declare support for you could really happen, anything could. Magic, dragons, fairytale princesses and knights of old - all of it looked the same. Maybe this feeling of everything being equally ridiculous was what Ruta felt all the time.

But Ruta wasn't Samehada, and Same was the only one Kisame was going to lock himself in a room with at this time. He'd apologize for walking away so rudely later. For now, he returned to the bathroom with the tub of water and the rubber duck, shut the door, locked it from the inside, and sat on the floor next to the tub, still trying to catch his breath. He didn't know why his breath needed catching, but it did. He would figure out the tightness in his face and chest later, the same later in which he was going to figure everything else out. _That's all later, some other time. Here and now, I have my breath, Same, the tub. A locked door. Nobody around. That's good. That's enough. _

Samehada left his back and crawled around the tub as stealthily as he could, making only a soft clicking noise. He crawled into Kisame's lap and cautiously licked his face, whining _worry_ as he did so. He'd never realized before that Human Cousin didn't think he had _any_ cousins. The idea of not knowing he had cousins struck Samehada as strange, bizarre, and very very bad. He pressed his snout into Kisame's cheek. Kisame's chakra was distant and cold, squeezed into a tight ball and hidden inside himself. Samehada licked his cheek to bring it back out.

Kisame wrapped his shark tightly in his arms, and recovered just enough to realize that the way he'd just acted was highly embarrassing. Samehada began singing as he licked Kisame's cheek. It sounded like the same song he'd sung to the rubber ducky. Kisame closed his eyes and let the song reassure him. _So what if it's embarrassing? I needed this, and that's all anyone gets to say about it. _

He cleared his mind of everything except the feeling of Samehada's scales beneath his hand, the sound of Samehada's song, and the sound of the rain drumming overhead.

.

**A/N: Uh oh, Ruta's on his way to becoming a full Author Avatar. I need to give him some characteristics that I don't have, stat!**

**Honestly, if I heard something that was unbelievable, there would only be two possible reactions to it. If I didn't believe it, I would have no reaction - "Nice story idea! No, I'm pretty sure that's not really possible. See ya later!" If I did, I would believe it completely as Ruta does. The idea of being forced to believe something _just enough_ to kind of believe it, but not really, is not a thing I have ever experienced. I can, and do, flip-flop between believing something and not believing it, and sometimes perform both feats at the same time, but never partially. Partial belief of this kind is something I do not do. Everything I have written which features a character having some reaction other than those two opposites is entirely based off of other people's stories, where those other people write stuff like this. I don't even know if real people ever experience this kind of partial belief that makes them uncomfortable - I just needed some way for the characters to take news, because it wasn't likely that all 8 of the Akatsuki members in this story would have 2 reactions between them. **

**On that note, poor Kisame. Being forced to experience people liking you when you never asked them to is rough. I'm retroactively glad I made the bathroom so comfortable.**

**Woot! It's the end of the college semester! Have fun everyone!**


	46. Other Side Of The Mirror

**A/N: This chapter's title brought to you by "Otherside", a Red Hot Chili Peppers song that has the best video EVER. Seriously, watch the actual video if you decide to look for the song. It's like a surrealist surrealism (and yes I know that's not a term, but it is anyway because I can't say it's a nightmare or a dream, so it'll be a surrealism). As far as I can tell from the lyrics, the title is actually about the other side of one's self, so bonus relevance!  
**

**This chapter was too easy to write. Seriously, I wrote the first scene, which felt like it took up maybe half the chapter, and then I wrote the second, which is much shorter, and I wondered what I was going to fill the rest of the chapter with. Then I looked at the actual page count and saw that the first scene was actually almost a whole chapter length by itself, so the second put this at noticeably longer than a typical chapter. What the heck?! I only meant to get the chapter started sometime before Saturday, but I accidentally got it finished and I have no idea how. My sense of time and space must be getting wonky around the topics discussed in this chapter. **

**The semester's officially one hundred percent OVER! Party time!**

**.**

**Nagato**

"Yikes!" Nagato shivered as they passed the cross hallway on the way to their rooms. "I got _a little _used to that symbol before, but after being out for half a day it's hitting me again."

"Me too," Yahiko sympathized. "Although, I think it feels differently for me than it does for you. You mentioned that it made you really jumpy and on edge, right? I don't get that. I just feel prickly all over like I'm somewhere uncomfortable, but it doesn't feel threatening or anything."

Nagato took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm his racing heart. It didn't work. "Well, it is the symbol of a religion. Presumably, the followers of that god feel good around their symbol, or they wouldn't use it. I'm guessing that how we feel is dependent on our relationship to him. You just have a better relationship than I do, apparently."

"Probably." Yahiko was already fiddling with the zipper of his cloak as they reached their rooms. "So, um, I think I'll, uh, need more...practice with those techniques. I mean, you have more chakra and lived longer and all, so… See you later!" Despite his face being mostly turned away, Nagato was able to see his cheeks briefly turn even redder before Yahiko opened his door, entered, and closed it again in record speed.

Nagato already had his suspicions from the way Konan had been teaching them before. This behavior only solidified them. _She must know something about what's bothering Yahiko, just like she knew about what was bothering me. She never pulled him aside, but he's still acting differently, so I was right - she must have been communicating something to him during that training session. But what? _Nagato shook his head as he entered his room. _It's none of my business. _

He stopped and listened once inside his room, convinced that he had heard a little click while he was closing the door. _Did Yahiko lock his room? _Nagato shook his head again. _None of my business. _

He pushed hangers aside to create a nice, open space for the cloak in the middle of what was going to be the shirt section of his closet. Once hung, he stood back to appreciate it some more. _Whoever designed these things had really good fashion sense, in addition to making them ridiculously comfortable. Somebody needs to send that person a gift basket, wherever they are. _He regretted that he couldn't do that himself. Stepping back from the closet, Nagato shivered again. He winced in extreme discomfort as he remembered the exact feeling of a metal rod exiting his flesh. _Ooooooookay, never mind. _He took the cloak back down and put it on. It could be used as a shirt, a very fashionable coat, and now as armor. Nagato did not know of a more versatile uniform.

His hyperalert ears picked up a strange sound as he put it on, making him race to put it on faster. Nagato then left his room to search of the source of the sound. _It doesn't sound like it's coming from any direction in particular. Not ahead, or behind, or from any of the hallways… Below? _He swallowed, took some more deep breaths, looked all around for no obvious reason, then put his ear to the floor. Indeed, some muffled vibration was coming through the floor. Its pitch rose briefly, then fell so that he could no longer hear it. Nagato felt his thick sleeves as he rose from the floor and headed for the basement door to investigate. _I've seen the symbol before. It's not dangerous. I'll be fine. But what the hell is making sound down there?!_

He stopped again after some distance, and listened for the sound. Just like he'd suspected, it had disappeared. _Is that good? Bad? Depends what was making it…_

His knees were beginning to tremble, and Nagato worried about his busy heart. His body was getting too hyped up for its own good. _Stop panicking! I can turn into a rhino if I want to, so why do I sound like a baby? _He took another deep breath. _Okay, yelling at myself probably won't help. It's just how it is. I am getting very scared from hearing things I don't know the source of, and that is okay. Panic acknowledged, and confirmed reasonable. But I have the power to deal with it. Panic confirmed unnecessary. Are we good now? _

His body calmed just a little. It was willing to cooperate - for now.

A second later, Nagato heard footsteps, and his heart shot up into his throat. But, true to their agreement, it did not interfere with the ability of his mind to think. He looked and saw Itachi, carrying a large guitar case on his back.

"Itachi!" He waved. "Hey. How have you been handling things?"

Itachi paused to take a deep breath. "I will need some time to recover before I can answer that."

"You too, huh?" Nagato pointed to his own face, which felt like it was flushed. Itachi looked a little pale, instead.

Itachi nodded. "I thought of testing the acoustic qualities of the basement, as well as myself. It echoes strangely - not surprising, for a room with a metal floor. As for myself, I was unable to think of a happy or pleasant tune to play. I kept playing active, high pitched, and discordant pieces, no matter what I initially set out to play. I've never experienced anything like it before. That symbol is very powerful."

"Oh, so it was you!" Nagato sighed in relief. "I heard something through the floor, but only barely, and only because freaking out like this put my senses on high alert. It was very muffled. I never would've been able to tell it was music."

"That's convenient." Itachi looked back. "A room that dissuades people from entering it, and also muffles noise. If I cultivate a tolerance for it, it would make the perfect private room for anything I wanted."

Nagato chuckled. "For maybe five minutes before everyone else has the same idea. I was already thinking of cultivating a tolerance for it, just for my own sanity. Once you resolve to do that, it only makes sense to think of what you just suggested." His voice was weak, wavery, and fast. He swallowed again. "Might as well start now. I'm going to sit for half an hour, get acclimated again, and try to go downstairs and open the door. It feels just like being really, really sick, to have my heart beating like this and everything." He noticed that his hands were also shaking.

Itachi saw too. "You didn't look this bad yesterday."

"That's because a metal rod hadn't slid out of my arm yesterday!" Nagato gestured to the arm where it had happened. "Like you said, the way I think is also different. I keep remembering other scary things, especially scary things that happened because of the symbol, which this did. Reinforcement." _And I'm getting less coherent too. Lovely. _

He changed his mind. "You know what, I've changed my mind. I need to get this over with." Before he could convince himself otherwise, Nagato turned and strode at high speed towards the basement door. _It does feel like being sick, and I don't want to be sick, so get this feeling out of me already!_

Itachi followed out of concern. "I'll provide backup," he reassured.

_Best...person...ever. _Nagato reached for Itachi's hand and squeezed it for dear life. "_Thank you._"

Itachi nodded. For more than one reason, he suspected the symbol was best confronted when one was not alone.

Nagato drove the thoughts from his mind, swung his arm madly, and managed to work up enough momentum to grab the door handle and twist before he could pull back. When he did jerk his hand back, it opened the door. The sight of the symbol washed over him, and Nagato recalled his more basic fears of monsters and leviathans. _It's a triangle inside a circle, not an eldritch abomination. _Both of his palms became so uncomfortable he had to squeeze his hands into fists again. _Okay, maybe it can be both. So what? I can climb Cthulhu and ride him like a pet dragon. Of course I can. _The mental image was funny. Nagato laughed as he forced his way inside.

Itachi closed the door behind them, but not all the way. "Well?" He was very unenthused to be back here so shortly after escaping, but he wasn't about to leave anyone alone in this room.

Nagato took a shaky breath and checked himself. "No mysterious wounds. No feelings of sickness, other than those caused by stress. I would say I'm extremely anxious, but not afraid, because I'm not reacting to any specific possibility. I'm not hearing 'Run!' or anything like that. I'm alright."

Itachi nodded. He'd read about the value of clarifying one's feelings in helping to manage them. "That is -"

"Okay, never mind." Nagato squeezed his hands together, palm to palm. "I actually am afraid of a specific possibility." He turned to Itachi and held his palms up. "All the symbol could make me feel before was a vague sense of foreboding, like I expected a monster to appear at any moment. Now that I know what's causing that, the sense of foreboding isn't effective anymore - but _this_ is. I'm going to have to get over it so the symbol can't amplify it anymore."

Itachi looked at Nagato's perfectly normal arms. "Metal rods from your arm would certainly be horrifying." Depending on how they emerged, the term Body Horror would be accurate to use. Actually, it would probably be accurate regardless of how they emerged.

Nagato nodded. "But nothing actually happened. I was fine. Okay." He held his left arm straight at his side. "I remember how to do it. I just…"

He cringed, doubling over so far he nearly fell to the floor. "Ah!" _OH GOD WHY isn't this as painful as I expected? _Had the sharp pain he remembered really been so mild, like the brief stinging of a needle? He sat on the floor and held up his hand, looking at it. What was really going on here? His stomach did some threatening maneuvers as he saw that the rod did not fully come out of his flesh, and he was unable to stop his eyes from tracing the line of blood where it joined his hand. The skin of his palm looked perfectly undisturbed, as if it had split of its own accord to make way. The end of the rod - _Eek!_ \- was sharpened to a point.

All of this, he forced into the glaring light of reason, to be measured and dealt with accordingly. He classified the sharpened point as _I can make my own spears._ His undisturbed skin was classified as _See? Perfectly natural. It doesn't hurt me at all. I should see if the opening still exists after I get it out of my hand._ The rod itself - _Well, at this point it's still a part of my body. Just another part. _He described to himself its exact color and shade, what kind of metal it was probably composed of, where that metal might have come from, and even raised his other hand to touch the rod. He mustered the courage to push it from side to side, finding that the rod did not emerge from his bones and touching it in any way did not shatter his entire forearm. Speaking of which, it appeared to be only as long as his forearm, at most. _Can I make it longer or shorter? _He remembered that the rod he'd reflexively made to act as a knife had been short enough for Konan to put in her weapons pouch. _I can. _

Nagato took several deep breaths, which actually worked this time. _I really do have this. _He smiled briefly, before taking the rod in his right hand and pulling gently. This also didn't hurt nearly as much as he was expecting. It emerged easily and cleanly, with barely any traces of blood on it. The rod was smooth and felt warm. Just as he remembered, his palm closed and appeared to heal instantly. Nagato probed his palm with one finger. There was no sign of the opening whatsoever. All he saw was one of those lines fortune tellers trace, which he'd always had. _Woah. _

Itachi quietly sat down across from him, putting great effort into pulling himself together, preventing his attention from straying to the thing behind him. "May I see?" he asked Nagato. The redhead looked up at the rod he still held. He nodded, and handed it to Itachi.

Itachi saw that it was smooth, dark, unreflective, resembled no sort of metal he'd ever seen, and the thin streaks of blood on it were already drying. "It doesn't look as fearsome as I thought," he murmured. "How did it feel?"

"Not as bad as I remembered," Nagato confirmed. "I _was_ quite frightened at the time. Konan appeared in front of me out of nowhere, and she had blood all over her, and I was already jumpy. Creating that was part of my battle reflexes. If it hadn't hurt just a little bit, like a dentist's needle, I would have attacked her." He shivered. "Thinking about it now, that's actually the scariest part. Do ninjas really train for it to become reflex to kill people?"

Itachi's voice was low. "If her world is as she has implied, the most likely reason for being surprised is that someone is trying to kill you. It can make sense." He lowered his hands and sat staring into his lap. "Not that it should," he whispered.

Nagato looked at him more closely. "Itachi...how _are_ you handling things?"

The musician closed his eyes and exhaled meditatively. "I am as curious as the next person. I wish to know what I am, and what I can do. I wish to understand what my place and situation in the world is. I want to seek answers.

"However…" He opened his eyes and looked down at the pointed rod in his hands. "I fear I'm at the limit of what I can safely learn without compromising myself. We've learned what we can from talking; now we must take action. I fear it may not be possible for that action to be peaceful. Fighting the demon and fighting with each other are the methods I see us using to develop.

"I don't wish to use those methods. I've used the Sharingan to study people's expressions and observe their movements, and to talk with them. I don't want to cause pain to people." He handed the rod back to Nagato as if it was too hot to hold. "I don't want to know any more of what it means to be a ninja, if this is what it means."

Nagato smiled. "Itachi, those are only the methods she told us about. Yahiko's in the same boat, but he's resolved to stay, and so have I. He's found his own method. He's going to learn more about those pain-relieving powers he demonstrated at the party, and try to develop them into medical jutsu, which_ is _an established form of power in her world. She just hasn't mentioned it as much as she's mentioned fighting and sparring. She's only telling us what she knows, and she's not as much of a pacifist as we are."

Itachi nodded. He looked up at Nagato. "I recognize that. However, it is much easier for Yahiko to find an alternative style. His abilities are more generalized. My own abilities include the Sharingan, illusions, and I believe she mentioned fire. The first two may be useful for negotiations, for all of the reasons previously described, but we don't have much need for negotiation. Fire is rather destructive, and it would be difficult to find a non-harmful use for it. Especially as we are right next to a forest, we have almost no need for fire, either. What kind of ninja can I be, when all of the possible alternative uses of my abilities are not useful?"

"There's a chance they could be," Nagato argued. "Remember, even the demon ultimately had to be defeated through talking with her, not force."

Itachi was unconvinced. "I recognize that, but I'm talking about a general lifestyle. That was a specific occasion. To be a ninja appears to be an ongoing project, always developing yourself. In what way am I supposed to develop? How can I find a method to develop that will not cost me my dearest values?"

Nagato could see why Itachi was so hopeless about finding a good option in that mess. "Well…" He flipped the rod end over end in his hands. Being near the symbol was still making it difficult to think. "Yahiko. Let's use him as an example. He's peaceful too, so maybe you could find something out." Nagato struggled to remember what exactly Yahiko intended to be doing. "He has water techniques. In order to use them in better ways, he's thinking of using them in unusual places, and combining other things with them, like how he used water to spread his chakra to help with healing. You could think of putting your fire or illusions inside something else, or putting something else inside them. They could be more useful in combination than separate."

Itachi was also having difficulty thinking, but he was quite sure that wasn't the main reason why he couldn't think of any ways to apply Nagato's advice. "Fire is still destructive, no matter what form it takes or where it is. And illusions aren't material; they have no substance in them to combine."

"Yeah, but…" Nagato tried to clear his mind, but couldn't. "I'm still pretty anxious from being here. We'd better go if I want to have ideas anytime soon."

"Agreed." They left the basement, and breathed a sigh of relief together as soon as the door was closed behind them. They climbed the stairs in silence. Itachi decided to take a break from such weighty topics to help them both get back to normal. "So, how is Yahiko doing?"

"Better, I think." Nagato described the kind of banter they'd had this morning with Konan. "He's very hopeful about his relationship with her, and his future in general. We didn't get to visit the library today, but maybe tomorrow. Hey, that's an idea - Yahiko wanted to visit the library to read more about nature spirits. If we can have demons, why not other mythical creatures of folklore? Negotiation skills might be really useful."

"I hadn't thought of that," Itachi realized. "And there I was the morning we prepared to go after her, talking with Yahiko about folklore. Thank you."

"Of course." Nagato opened his mouth to steer the conversation back to their earlier track, when he heard a door opening and footsteps.

They both turned to see Hidan step out of his room, shirtless and with his ever-present scythe on his back. His fingers combed through his hair like they were looking for something while he looked at them. "Hey, guys. Did I miss anything?"

"When did you get back?" Nagato asked. "And did it work?"

"Did what work?" Itachi asked.

Hidan groaned as his fingers found something he'd hoped not to find. "Earlier, I said I'd be gone because I needed to destress, get rid of all these unpleasant feelings and shit that I've been getting for the past couple days. Fuck yeah, it worked. I got back not long ago, and I've been in my room ever since. My hair's _still_ fucking wet at the roots!"

"Wet? You mean you were caught in the rain?" Nagato hoped Hidan wasn't going to get a cold or anything like that. He was needed, especially now, when everyone was adjusting.

"No, I got back just before that started," Hidan waved his words off. "It's from the lake. Y'see, water's like a universal solvent. Everything dissolves in it. So when I need to get rid of everything I've gotten piled up with, I use water for it. Everything means _everything_." He looked sheepish. "Though, I have to be careful not to use the same water too often. The concentration of bad shit I have to get rid of is like poison, apparently. Everything's dead by the time I wake up all refreshed and shit."

"Wait," Nagato ordered. "You mean… did you just say you use water to absorb _nonmaterial things?_"

"...Yeah." Hidan looked between the two of them. "You guys do know it's used for all kinds of ritual purification and washing away evil and shit, right? That's a standard use for it."

"That's brilliant." Itachi wondered why he hadn't thought of that, either. Hidan was right, after all. "Yahiko seems to be doing well enough on his own, but Kisame… Yes, that would be very useful. And Konan did say I excelled at teamwork during our evaluation. Of course!"

"See, that's something I don't think she's even thought of," Nagato realized. "Our thinking is a whole world away from hers. We could invent things nobody's ever even imagined in her world."

Hidan looked between the two of them some more. "Does this have to do with you two being all scared and shit earlier?"

Nagato considered his answer. "Well, not exactly. We did start talking about this because of our efforts to get rid of the fear, though."

"How'd that go?" Hidan asked cheerfully. "Sounds awesome!"

Itachi asked, "What did you feel on your end?"

"I didn't." Hidan looked annoyed. "You guys were all anxious and shit, and then it all disappeared, like you went into a blind spot where I couldn't get a signal. Then I felt stuff again, but that was just now after you'd come out of it. That's why I need to ask how it went."

Nagato and Itachi were silent. Both of them knew Hidan had discomfort and memory problems with certain topics, but neither had connected this with the symbol in the basement. "You can't see into the basement?" Nagato asked.

"What about the rest of this building?" Itachi continued. "Has the air or any other part of the environment felt different since yesterday?"

Hidan scratched his head. "No, and no. People feel different, but I have no clue what you're talking about with the air and shit. And I'm glad I don't get signals from down there. Something happened yesterday morning that felt like being fucking electrocuted, so I had to leave and hang out with that tiger guy for hours until it was happening less, but I'm still not fucking going down there. Electricity bad."

"Really?" Nagato flipped the rod end over end in his hand as he thought. _The morning… If there was a whole ritual involved, that would be the beginning of it, which would make the end of the ritual the 'hours later' when it settled down and he could come back. _"It sounds like occult rituals don't go well with you. Sorry." Nagato was relieved to find out that he wasn't the one with the greatest intolerance to the symbol after all.

"No, probably the specific content of that ritual," Itachi whispered. He hadn't missed the part of their discussion at the party where Hidan had gotten really uncomfortable, which had also been the part where everyone had started speculating about the nature of divinity. Add to that this version of Hidan not being religious, as far as Itachi could tell, and he was beginning to work out some answers about Hidan. It was clear that Hidan's memory problems, as well as general discomfort, were related at least partly to religious issues. Most likely, these issues would be centered around his original's religion. Itachi was not surprised, now that he thought about it, that Hidan would be especially repelled by Jashin sama's symbol. Even failing to perceive it made sense as an extension of his memory problems. "It makes perfect sense that you are not comfortable with the basement, and I'm surprised I didn't expect you to be. That's all right."

Nagato turned his head in Itachi's direction, probably giving him a look beneath his red hair. Itachi nodded to say he would explain later. "So, in order to resolve our discomfort, we…"

Hidan was nodding along in complete agreement as Itachi finished. "Confidence through knowing shit is the best confidence," he confirmed. "Y'ever heard astronauts saying they don't go up into space _hoping_ they'll come down again, they go up having studied the fuck out of all the reasons they'll be coming down again? Like that! It's always good to have some backing for feelings, I've found. You two are fucking geniuses."

Nagato flushed. "It was the only thing to do, really," he muttered. "You might not feel it, but trust me: everyone else can feel that thing we have in the basement. For me, it makes me jumpy and anxious, which coincidentally amplifies any fear I experience. I have to deal with my fears just to preserve my sanity around it."

"Which is a form of genius," Hidan explained. "How many people know that? Smokin' hot _and _smart as shit; no wonder Original You was in charge of everything."

Nagato's face turned bright red. _Hidan has to know, right? I've felt things around him before. Why does he say such suggestive things? _He really hoped Hidan would stop, especially if there was someone else around to see Nagato's reaction. _Please don't let Itachi say anything. _

Itachi already knew everything he needed to know from observations of Nagato's behavior in the past. He shrugged and said, "At any rate, this idea we've come up with merits further planning. I'll go to my room to think about it." He left Nagato and Hidan to flirt as much as they wanted.

Nagato felt some heat leave his cheeks, and sighed. _Oh thank god he's not going to ask. _The redhead turned his attention to Hidan, in the form of a glare. "Could you not? Especially when someone's around."

"Huh, I thought you'd like it," Hidan said. "You seem pretty open about shit."

"I thought I was," Nagato lamented. "But I'm not. I can't even think the exact words to myself, much less consider telling anyone. I can't even say it to you or Konan. It's like I only half-acknowledge reality. I'm not comfortable." He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "So, give me some time to think things through. I have more developing to do before I'm ready." _Still can't say it. Damn, how long is it going to take to coax myself out of my shell? _

"Oh, shit." Hidan rubbed his chin. "You could hang around whenever you want, you know. If you want to talk about related things, or if you just want to hear me talk. Learn by example or something."

Nagato blinked. "That's actually a really good idea." He'd never thought of getting to know someone else who was more open than he was before.

"...So, you wanna? I have several opinions on Sunshine's hair you might agree with," Hidan offered. "And you_ have_ to tell me about that thing you're holding."

_How does he know I have opinions about Yahiko's hair? _Nagato realized he didn't even know whether those kinds of opinions were typical of people in relationships in general. How could he expect himself to just suddenly be an expert, when he was starting from square one? _I could stand to receive a little more compassion from myself. _"Me too. Sure. Oh, this? It...came from my arm."

"See, that's exactly the sort of thing I love to hear more about." Hidan turned to go back in his room. "Oh, and love the outfit! You know how I feel about it in general, so I gotta say, it's fucking amazing to see it around more. Can't wait to see it everywhere!" Nagato blushed, and laughed. He hoped he would see it around more, as well. He followed Hidan inside to the room with the soft carpet.

**Yahiko**

Yahiko did not have perfect memory of his dreams, and he'd never considered the question in detail in his waking life, so it was some time before he achieved the form he'd dreamed of two nights prior. By the time he did, Nagato had long since finished presenting his views on Yahiko's hairstyle, and Hidan was halfway through his. Yahiko's hands were well acquainted with the required hand signs for Transformation Jutsu, which felt oddly familiar, and his chakra felt well acquainted with this pattern as well. He was glad he didn't have a fearful reaction to the symbol in the basement, or else the amount of combined fear would have reduced him to huddling under the blankets weeping before he even started.

Yahiko reached back and casually flicked a strand of his hair out to the side. It billowed gracefully before falling gently against his shoulders, which were slimmer than usual. He took his hairbrush, which he had placed on the bathroom sink counter before starting, and brushed at the hair that hung down to frame the sides of his face. He smiled as he did so. The face _was_ a real achievement, and he was proud of it. It looked gentle and feminine and… _Like I'm not just some perv doing this for kicks, I guess. _

To further that impression, he'd given his transformation a very sensible blouse that buttoned up to just below the collarbone and covered the entirety of his belly; nothing special or attention-getting at all. It was just like an ordinary T-shirt, with buttons. Breast size was as large as he could feel comfortable with, which was still very moderate. Yahiko flushed as the only description he could think of, not knowing anything about cup sizes, was "hand-sized." Of course, that was with a female hand, which he had immediately washed just in case the demon boy had sent a ghost to spy on him. Presumably a male hand would be larger, and would find his transformation's features to be relatively small. Yahiko was glad for that. The _last_ thing he would ever want would be to attract attention in this form.

The purpose of brushing his already-perfect hair was to get a feel for it, see how it behaved. Yahiko sighed in pleasure at the feeling of running a brush through long hair. A memory floated to the top of his mind - _a little plastic comb, the cheap kind that comes with the doll's accessories, carefully working out any traces of knots from the doll's long black hair._ Yahiko ended the memory there, returning his attention to his current time and place, because he knew that if he let the memory keep playing, in a couple seconds his father would walk in and say something about the doll, and Yahiko, despite not being able to remember what his exact words were, would remember perfectly the feeling of being a silly and strange little boy.

_It's all right now, though. It's my hair, so it's fine. _It was not weird at all to brush your own hair, or pick out your own outfit. Of course, that reasoning was dependent on nobody walking in and asking why he was transformed in the first place, so Yahiko had locked both the main and bathroom doors before starting.

After that, it was time for posing, and after that, it was finally time for the good part. Yahiko double checked the lock on the bathroom door before starting _that_. He'd managed to reconcile himself with the possibility of ghosts, so once he verified that the only spies would have to be ghosts, he took the chest out from its place between the toilet and the sink and placed it on top of the toilet lid. He opened it, and took a few deep breaths to calm the nervous butterflies that arose in his stomach.

_Taking deep breaths feels weird. _The added weight and different shape of his chest was very noticeable. Yahiko wasn't sure if it felt good-weird or bad-weird, or if he was even supposed to notice at all. What did noticing mean? _Well, this is the first time, so it means nothing because anyone would. But if I spend some more time in this form and get used to it, then what would it mean if I still noticed? _He had no idea whether or not he would, no preconceptions about what to expect. _I guess I'll look it up when I get there. _

At any rate, he giggled quietly as he finally reached into the chest, selected some contents, and took a closer look at them. _It's really weird - why would the demon kid give this stuff to a guy? But, maybe he knew I would be in this form at some point in the future, so he meant for me to use it now as a girl. _Yahiko gasped as he saw that the chest contained the exact kind of mascara he had secretly decided on years before as part of a "thought experiment." _Maybe my whole life has been preparation for having this form. _He eagerly called to mind the Youtube videos he'd watched on makeup application and got to work.

His jaw dropped as he stared into the mirror. _I had no idea it made such a difference! _He'd never seen the effects of makeup on his own face. While examining his transformation's face from different angles, a stray thought wormed its way into Yahiko's mind: _I wonder how this would look on my real face? _

His heart beat faster, and Yahiko flushed. _That would be...weird. I've wondered before, but to actually wear it? That would be… Well, it'd be horribly embarrassing, and strange of me, and nobody would ever look at me the same way ever again. But...maybe if nobody sees… _

He removed all of the makeup except that around his eyes before undoing the Transformation Jutsu. Like Hidan, he had the same eyes as he always did, but he'd adjusted the shape and proportions of the rest of his face very slightly. His heart beat stronger as he looked shyly up into the mirror now. _Oh, it looks good! _He glanced around and carefully reached for the other supplies he'd selected and applied. Very slowly, and with more checking of his surroundings, he began to reapply them.

_Whoa, I look good! _Of course Yahiko had no attraction to men, but he wasn't attracted to his own female form either, so he felt he was perfectly qualified to say such a thing. He looked drop dead _pretty_ with a few subtle touches. _Wow! I could… No, I couldn't. At least not around anyone who knew how I looked normally. It's subtle enough, I could get away with it around strangers. I would be really beautiful then! _He sighed as the idea of being admired by strangers failed to have any appeal whatsoever. _Well, I like to look good, but I like to be respected more, so that's never going to happen. _For no discernible reason, tears came to his eyes. He hurried to remove everything before his work could be ruined.

After that was done, the chest was put back, and everything else was replaced so there was no sign of any of his activities, Yahiko sat on his bed facing the wall and buried his head in his knees. The tears slowly began to trickle out of his eyes. _Why? It feels good to finally be able to do these things without being strange or silly. _And yet, his eyes continued to drip. He sniffled into the darkness of his knees. _I can finally be me, and have it be okay. What's wrong? _Somehow this thought only made him sob harder.

After half an hour, he was able to stop. His eyes were still puffy though, and he wanted to apologize to Nagato for locking the door on him, so Yahiko shivered in indecisive fear for five minutes before giving in and using some more contents of his chest to make his eyes look normal. He looked closely for five more minutes to make sure nobody else would reasonably be able to see it. It looked nearly invisible at first glance, but he kept finding patches where it clashed against his normal skin, and _What if it looks too perfect? _and _What if by the time I see him, my eyes aren't puffy, so it looks different instead of normal? _Yahiko eventually groaned, looked away for fifteen seconds, then gave himself a quick glance. He saw nothing. _Stop it! I'm just freaking myself out. It's fine. _

He then went to find Nagato. After much searching, he heard voices coming from Hidan's room. There was the sound of laughter. Yahiko opened the door, and saw Nagato and Hidan sitting on Hidan's barely-used bed. The scythe lay next to them, curling around behind Nagato like a giant cat. A black metal thingy was next to it, for some reason. Hidan was showing Nagato something on his phone, which was making Nagato blush underneath his broad smile. Nagato jerked backwards as he realized Yahiko was there, but Hidan simply turned his phone off and put it in his lap as he waved. "Heya, Sunshine!" Hidan was in female form.

"Hey." Once more, Yahiko was reminded that other people had better things to do than look at him as closely as he looked at himself. _It's really good to have reminders of that. Hidan's awesome! _He grinned at them both, laughing as the joy from his adventures with Transformation Jutsu returned. "Is this the best rainy day ever, or what?"

"It is!" Nagato nodded.

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan agreed. "Hey, as long as we've got this little interruption, where'd Konan go?"

"It was only raining lightly when we got back, so she went up to that spot she likes in the roof," Nagato explained. "I hope she's not still there. It sounds heavier now."

Yahiko fiddled with his hair. "I was, uh, busy, so I might not've noticed if she came back."

Hidan clapped his hands together in front of his face and concentrated. "Shhhh." After two minutes of silence, he opened his eyes and released his hands. "I picked up her tiredness, and I did _not_ pick up coldness or that feeling like you're sick along with it, so she's good."

"Wait. You can broaden your sensory range by concentrating?" Nagato realized this was very useful information.

"Yeah, I can. It doesn't really take that much concentration to pick up the presence of a person; I just took that long because I had to tell what condition she was in, which is harder," Hidan explained.

"How far is your basic range when you're not concentrating?" Yahiko sat down on the bed with them.

"I've had my sleep messed with by you two, but not Konan, and she's almost definitely had dreams and shit that would've messed with my sleep. You two are right on the other side of the hallway, so, it's about the length of the hallway," Hidan calculated.

"Nice!" Yahiko looked around. "So if we put one person in each room with a distinct sensation and we have you at the end, in the lobby or something, and we measure the distance…"

"I'll volunteer to put my hand in ice water for that," Nagato enthused.

From Hidan's perspective, it was like floating. That was just what he felt like as the room filled with happiness, chatter, and the joy of planning.

.

**A/N: I do not have any knowledge of cup sizes, so I would be interested to know roughly what size that would be called. "Hand-sized" means that, with the palm centered over the nipple (standard groping procedure), the fingers have to be spread as widely as possible in order to just reach the base of the breast. If anyone knows what size that would be...**

**I have no idea how, but I have this recurring problem where my mental images of what the scenes look like keep losing objects. I forgot to include Samehada in the party scene, I keep forgetting to mention the scythe, and the rod disappeared too, forcing me to add those things back in. What the everloving heck? *sigh* Well, at least I know to keep a watch out for that. **

**The dream referenced in Yahiko's scene is right at the beginning of "Sleepers". I figured it would save time to have that reference, since I already described what Yahiko's female form's hairstyle looks like back then. **

**I still need to figure out where Deidara and Kakuzu are...**


	47. Friendship Is Magic

**A/N: Had to do major revision on this chapter. Kisame's scene after his thought about the nature of friendship was all rewritten today, because it sucked the first time. The rewrite turned out longer, which is why the chapter has extra length now.  
**

**I don't even know about today's title. I was just reaching for something to name it. I have never seen My Little Pony and have no wish to. **

***sigh* Due to recent twists in the direction of my other fic, I am trying to watch more of the Naruto anime after I stopped. I think I've been stopped for the whole publishing time of this fic (almost a year) so my perspective on the series is really changed. Maybe it's just the fillerness of the filler arc I'm at, but I don't remember any arc seeming quite so shabby before. The characters in my own stories seem so much more relatable, intelligent, and overall make the characters look bad. That's not a good thing. I want to enjoy my newest favorite show. *groan***

**.**

**Deidara**

"That is the sum total of everything we saw up there," Kakuzu finished. "It was hardly worth the trip."

"Not true!" Deidara slapped his ponytail from side to side in an effort to shake off what little droplets remained. "Some of it sounds really important, yeah."

Konan sat silently on the back stoop, staring out into the rain. She gave no indication of agreeing with either of them. Deidara wondered what toll this was taking on her. _All her friends are dead, she's got her own problems to sort out, we have no idea what's happening, and on top of that she has to train all of us, too?! No way, hm. It's about time we pulled our own weight, yeah._

"I mean," Deidara continued. "It's kind of interesting how we saw some beds, but no knicknacks or a fridge or anything like that. It reminded me of camping, or the sort of stuff you might bring for a visit, yeah. Like us, but less dedicated."

"And?" Kakuzu pushed. "What's the point in finding traces of people who don't care about ninja things? Even if they did learn jutsu well enough to make those holes in that tree, the odds they'll be friendly and helpful are minimal."

Deidara shook his head. "You seriously going to ignore people just because they're as skeptical as you and Kisame were? That's hypocritical, hm! If they're at least _trying_, we should help, yeah. At least get to know them. They could probably use some reassurance."

"This _is_ my idea of being reassuring. Do you honestly think a bunch of self-taught amateurs would appreciate being told everything we've been told?" Kakuzu asked. "If they still have a chance to stay out of this crap, let them."

"Out of the demons and werewolves and vampires and who knows what else, you mean?" Deidara snorted. "There's no way to stay out of _that_. The demons are already in town, yeah."

"Pretty minor demon," Kakuzu shot back.

"There are vampires," Konan whispered. She did not interrupt her vigil to say this.

Kakuzu raised his eyebrows, but thought better of asking her to elaborate. "If that's the case, you might have a point," he conceded to Deidara.

"...Yeah." Deidara struggled to do anything _besides_ ask her to elaborate. "And, I mean, we don't have to tell them everything, yeah. It wouldn't help if they're too scared to explore their powers more. We could just tell them we're a little more experienced, and share what we know about chakra and what it can be used for and absolutely nothing else, yeah."

Kakuzu nodded. "Show them your bird and keep them away from the spiders, and they might buy it."

Deidara looked offended. "What, do you think I'd just surprise someone with giant spiders? I'm not some kind of sadist!"

Konan let their bickering fade into the background, which was worryingly easy to do. She shouldn't have been having so much trouble paying attention to them in the first place. She blamed it on the rain. The sound of heavy rain flooding down onto the world felt like a giant blanket. The realization of how much she'd missed this constant sound caused some pain, but not enough to outweigh its comforting effects. Thanks to the weight of the clouds, she felt safe and cozy. The only thing keeping her awake was being outside, where it was colder than she would've liked.

In her mind, she lazily turned over some practical considerations. The back stoop that they sat on was rather unsanitary. She mulled over several possible ways to clean it. Then there was her cloak. She had not forgotten the dilemma trying to clean it had raised. How could she wash her cloak after sitting here, without sacrificing respectability? She should get a replacement. Thank goodness there was time…

The sensation of falling alerted her to the news that her eyes had drifted closed at some point. Konan struggled valiantly, and was rewarded with the ability to sit up, and then to stand. She hurried to an actual bed as fast as her seemingly sedated limbs would allow.

Deidara and Kakuzu glanced at each other. Kakuzu shrugged. "Good thing we've gotten to the part where we don't need her anymore."

"Hey!" Deidara objected to that phrasing. "She's still valuable and everything, yeah. We're just informed and strong enough to take some of the burden off her shoulders, yeah."

"That's what I said." Kakuzu also wondered how much time, effort and/or money it would take to clean the surface they were currently sitting on.

Deidara checked his phone for the second time in five minutes. "Dammit! Kisame's still not answering my question, hm. He'd better have found something really interesting over there, yeah."

Kakuzu stretched. "I don't know why you're waiting. It's dark enough that I would expect him to stay wherever he is for the night." He followed Konan inside, wondering if Hidan was back yet.

Deidara sighed in impatient frustration. Kakuzu was probably right. _Huh… If I want to help her out, take some of the responsibility off her… _A metaphorical lightbulb lit up above Deidara's head. _I should get a training partner! Well, if I'm going to get one of those, I need to figure out what I'm good at, bad at, who can help…_

Deidara stayed on the back stoop. He crossed his legs, closed his eyes, and settled in to do a lot of thinking.

**Kisame**

_I should thank Sakumo. It was kind of him to offer, and I do like being here. I probably will end up taking him up on that offer, so there's no point in pretending I won't. _

Kisame took a deep breath in front of the mirror, and let it out slowly. Locking himself in the bathroom for however long it had been had done wonders. Granted, it had also fed Samehada's cuddly tendencies, so the shark was currently refusing to let go of him for any length of time, but Kisame figured that was okay. If Samehada was still clingy in the morning he'd have to deal with it. But for now, Kisame was actually grateful to the shark on his back. The familiar weight was reassuring.

"And how are you feeling?" he asked. Samehada made a low rumbling sound and shifted back and forth on Kisame's back as if settling into a bed. Kisame had no idea how to interpret that. "Well, ready or not, we'd better go. I should probably apologize to Sakumo."

Kisame found Sakumo, Mitsuki, a couple of other half tigers, and one half snake cleaning up. "Ah, there you are!" Sakumo stopped what he was doing and came over to talk with Kisame. "How are things?"

Kisame looked over his shoulder at his shark. "Same's being all cuddly, and I'm glad for it. Reassuring, and all that. Anyway, I wanted to say I'm on board with what you said earlier. I like spending time with you guys, and I have a lot more questions about those desert lizards. Besides, _someone_ has to help Ruta put together a database, and Konan can't be asked to do all of it."

"Speaking of which…" Sakumo gestured for Kisame to follow him to a corner, away from the others. "How is she?" he asked in a quiet whisper. "She acted...pretty strangely when I met her. I don't know anything about her at all, really, but I'm concerned anyway."

"Would've been nice to be warned," Kisame muttered. "Yeah, she's not doing too well. Mitsuki said Hidan's been here?"

Sakumo nodded. "He left before anyone else returned, but Mitsuki told us about him. He sounds like a pleasant and kind man."

"As far as she's concerned, he's a lifesaver," Kisame explained. "Her issues are not helpful in dealing with other people. A few days ago, a bunch of us were thinking of leaving and never coming near here again after she stole Sasori's laptop. But that was before she helped us fight off a demon, and Hidan's doing everything he can to help, so that's been averted...for now. Actually, some people seem to be _more_ determined to stick around for her, somehow. I'm worried that groupthink's setting in."

Sakumo opened his mouth to object, then thought better of it. "I wouldn't use that word, but I _am_ wired differently. I think that's a good thing, that he's helping her and she's starting to get people who are loyal to her," he said while smiling. "Friends are some of the most crucial things one can have. I'm very optimistic about her odds, now that she has some."

"Eh." _I don't really know what I think about the value of friendship anymore… _"It's not as simple as that," Kisame muttered. "I would prefer it to be - it would save my heart some work, for one. But no, things have to be complicated."

Sakumo debated with himself quietly. Eventually, he said, "I won't tell you you're wrong. I don't know anything about your situation, after all. But, I am curious: Why do you say that things have to be complicated?"

Kisame growled. "Our originals. Maybe it would be different if she hadn't known them, but the reality is that she _did_ know them, and part of Hidan's attempts to help her out is getting her to talk about them so she can move on. _Nobody_ likes what they've heard. And, speaking strictly for myself here, _my_ original would be getting in my way even if I didn't know anything about ninjas at all." He folded his arms across his chest, looking distinctly unhappy and more than a little irritated.

Sakumo looked worried. "How so? Maybe we can help."

_Should I? _Kisame reflected on what he knew, and realized that Sakumo and his group likely could help. "Yeah, you might be able to. Alright. According to her, my original lived in the seedy underbelly of ninja society, over in the 'Betrayal' district. Plenty of experience with backstabbing. I would normally be the first guy to call her out for lying...but I can't."

Kisame glanced over his shoulder at Samehada, who was listening intently to the story. "I didn't notice it until I broke Same out of the aquarium. The whole time, I was sure someone would come along and something horrible would happen. I was on high alert all the way out to the car, and for the entire ride back. Nothing actually happened, except for meeting a coworker of mine who, just as I'd been told she would, didn't care about Same at all. I had no reason to think she would care, but everything seemed far too easy. Every instinct I had was screaming at me that I had to go unnoticed, avoid other people, because if I didn't I would be attacked in some way, and it was a bad sign that I hadn't been already."

Kisame petted Samehada on the nose, which was very comforting. "That's actually the reason why I started to buy her story of us being clones of ninjas from another world. It was the only thing that explained why I had those instincts when, for as long as I can remember, I've never gone through anything that would lead me to be that paranoid. I don't like to think that any version of me could have been a backstabbing bastard, but it's the only rational explanation."

Kisame comforted himself with that quote famously attributed to Sherlock Holmes while Sakumo took a moment to digest this. Samehada licked the side of his face in an attempt to be comforting. So _that_ was why he'd been acting strangely and being mean to the nice Janitor Lady! Samehada could understand this. The idea of learning bad things from the Originals did not make his head hurt at all. He wondered why Human Cousin hadn't talked about it before.

Sakumo clapped his hands. "Well, if there's one thing people like us know, it's how to make instincts useful. I'm sure we can retrain or learn to work around that, with enough time."

"I already have one suggestion," Kisame told him. "That's not the only time I've gotten jumpy for no reason. A while ago, when I was coming back the first time after making all of you rush for painkillers, it happened when I sensed someone waiting for me. It was just Ruta, not wanting to disturb me or Same. My suggestion is that you really should. It was his lurking in the shadows that caught my attention."

Sakumo nodded. "Most of us are already aware that it's a good idea not to surprise most kinds of wild animals, for exactly that reason. I'll tell everyone the same applies to you and Same, without stating why of course."

"Much appreciated." Kisame nodded at Sakumo. _It's kind of nice to talk to someone who understands what I'm talking about as 'no big deal.' It's hard to feel strange or different here. _

Samehada wriggled happily and crawled forward to lick Sakumo's face. Wolf Person was very nice! Samehada wanted to be friends with him very much.

Sakumo rubbed the small part of his cheek that Samehada had reached, which was already turning red from the shark's rough tongue. "Aw, he seems to like me."

Kisame agreed. "Knowing him, he'll want to play with you next. Speaking of which, now that I've found my way over here, do you want to know where we are?"

"Of course!" Sakumo's eyes were bright. "Did you imagine I would just wait for Hidan or Konan to drop by again? Of course not; I would like to visit them, and anyone else."

Kisame found his enthusiasm dangerous. "Be careful! Like I said, she's not doing too well. Fortunately, she's more tired than angry, but you should still be careful not to get too energetic. Try to come by in the morning, if you want to visit soon. And I would recommend visiting soon; she's still intimidating, even now. It could get worse when she recovers."

Sakumo nodded. "Thank you."

"That said, do you have a pen?" Sakumo led him past the others into the main room, where he located a writing utensil and a scrap of paper. Kisame wrote down the address of the hotel, and handed the scrap back.

Sakumo studied the writing carefully, looking confused. "I don't recognize it." Kisame provided directions for how to reach it from town.

Samehada went "Huh?" again as he noticed Sakumo's eyes start to go wide. The wolf ninja paled as soon as Kisame finished speaking. "Wait, you're -" he sputtered. "You're staying _there?_"

Kisame was instantly alert. He could not have ignored the concerned faces watching them from the doorway if he had tried. "Yes. Is there something wrong?"

Sakumo wrestled himself partially under control. "Well… Nothing exact. It's just that, whenever I go out with the wolves, they avoid that general area like the plague. Whenever I ask why, all they can tell me is that it's a bad place. Not scary; I'm quite sure their body language says _bad_. They'll happily go further west than that, but they always take a northward detour, no matter what."

"That makes sense." Kisame relaxed somewhat. "We have a demon living down the street from us. The entire place where he lives is visibly unnatural - the plants grow strangely, the road's crumbled, and it's haunted. I'm not surprised no animal wants to go near that."

Sakumo swallowed and stayed pale. Kisame hastened to add, "But he's a relatively friendly one. He does like to mess with people, so watch out for him playing tricks if you ever see him, but Hidan says he doesn't like to seriously hurt or kill anyone. He's a demonic _little kid_, so he just wants to look at interesting things and have fun. He seems to believe that local ninjas are the most interesting things around, so we're safe."

"Oh." Sakumo regained some color. "That's good to know." His eyes flicked sideways to his concerned clanmates. "In fact, it's something we should have asked you about before. Are there other things besides us in this world, and are any of them dangerous?"

Kisame chuckled. "There's _a lot_ of other things around here. I could be here all day." He sobered as he considered the second half of Sakumo's question. "That said, at least one thing is definitely dangerous, and there are many more things that are too freaky or bizarre for anyone to know what they are, let alone describe them."

Sakumo nodded decisively. "Well, it won't do to be surprised."

_I really hope he doesn't have to deal with half the list. It would be a shame if he did. _Kisame found that he was beginning to be very concerned about Sakumo's group. Even if he'd only just met them, they were the most unique people he'd ever just met in his entire life. "I really hope you aren't. But you're right, so, let's see…" _Definitely dangerous things: the demons in town. Ambiguously dangerous things: the lake, the demon kid, that freaky symbol in the basement, let's just add Hidan's entire god to the list while we're at it, and that's all I can remember. Harmless-looking things: that other kid, whatever Dei and Kakuzu spotted, and that's also all I can think of._

"Okay." Kisame began to list things off. "Near our place, there's the demon kid and a symbol Konan put in the basement. She says it's the symbol of the god Original Hidan worshipped, and that he's on our side, or whatever the godly equivalent is. He's tied to Hidan, so you people should be safe, but if you feel something creepy in the air that makes you feel paranoid when you visit, that's why. It's just a symbol, so making you feel scared is all it can do.

"Between us and town are the suburbs. There's nothing there, as far as anyone knows. In town, there are other demons. These ones are a different kind than the demon kid; they're less powerful, but much more threatening. We've spent the past week fighting off a succubus that was angry at us. She was angry at us because of theological disturbance caused by Hidan, so you're probably safe. But you still shouldn't go alone - she tried to steal Sasori's soul and got vicious with Yahiko, and who knows if there are more dangerous kinds of demons in town as well. On the plus side, there's another mysterious kid in town, and he looks like a toddler and likes to hide, so you don't need to worry about him."

_The hotel, the suburbs, in town… _"Then there's the forest. There's a lake near our base. It might be possessed - it looked entirely normal before, but when I got there earlier, it looked like it'd been very active until recently, in ways that lakes shouldn't be. I'll update you as we find out what the hell is going on out there. Dei and Kakuzu took a look from the sky, and saw another conveniently abandoned building where people might be staying. We don't know of anything else in these woods, but come on. All the evidence we have so far indicates that we might be living in a multi-universe everything-and-the-kitchen-sink fantasy story written by a complete hack, so keep your eyes peeled."

Sakumo nodded. "I'll ask the wolves to keep their noses open, as well. So, then, what about the abandoned houses?"

Kisame thought about the abandoned houses. After a second or two, he wished he hadn't. _Oh, CRAP. _

"I need to make a phonecallthanksbye," he muttered as he walked quickly past Sakumo, down the hallway. _Crap crappity crap. How did we forget about that?! _He cursed his phone for not turning on instantaneously, and for loading his messages at slower than light speed. He saw that he had several notifications from Deidara, probably about whatever the blonde and Kakuzu had found. Kisame didn't care, as long as Deidara was still available.

The phone picked up after one and a half rings. "Dei, it's Kisame," he snapped before the blond could get a word in. "I'll read your messages later. There's much more important shit to talk about." Samehada whined and pressed closer to Kisame, frightened by the tone in his voice. Kisame reminded himself to calm down and try to sound gentler.

"What is it, yeah?" Deidara sounded very worried as well. Kisame sighed.

"Do you remember what Hidan said a week ago, at that first meeting where Konan told us about Sakumo?"

He swore he could hear Deidara thinking on the other end. "Kind of…? I remember they started talking about weird things, and the wolf guy was one of those weird things…" Kisame also swore he could hear the lightbulb go off. "Oh, crap! How did I forget that?"

"Must've slipped our minds while we were fighting a bloodthirsty demon," Kisame muttered.

"Wait, wait, hold on, hm," Deidara continued. "Does that have to do with the vampires?"

"_What?!"_

Sakumo caught up to Kisame, carefully edging around the doorway. He ventured to ask, "Is everything alright?" Samehada whimpered and shook his head while trying to look smaller. Sakumo did not take this as a good sign.

Kisame, for once, did not notice. "Vampires? You think those creepy people-things he mentioned are _vampires?_" Kisame facepalmed. "Never mind, it makes perfect sense. But how do you know -"

"Konan said it," Deidara interrupted. "Just now, yeah. She said there are vampires. She didn't say where, or anything else, just that there are some, yeah."

"How the hell does she know there are vampires, and more importantly, _when?_" _Swear to god, if she's been hiding things from us, I will be very angry about it, no matter how much sense it may make! _Kisame knew very well that they'd been a little busy for the past few days, and such news would not have been well received, but he was much too emotional to accept logic at this moment.

"I don't know, hm!" Deidara sounded disturbed as well. "I'll go ask, yeah." Before Kisame could say anything more, he heard the _*bleep*_ of Deidara disconnecting. He growled and turned around to see Sakumo even paler than before. The wolf ninja was almost as white as his hair.

This sight failed to have any impact on Kisame. That was the first warning sign. "Yes, we somehow managed to forget about strange people-shaped things living in or below the abandoned houses for a whole week," Kisame deadpanned. "That just goes to show you how fucked-up everything's been for the past week."

"Fucked up?" Mitsuki was the next to poke his head around the door frame. "What is?"

"In the past week, we've encountered a possessed lake, one ambiguously creepy demon, another definitely life-threatening demon, an ambiguously friendly but very creepy god, we don't know what's going on with Hidan or Konan, and who knows what _else_ is in these woods," Kisame rattled off. "In all of that, we forgot about some weird nocturnal people who lurk in the abandoned houses west of town. It just really sets everything else in perspective."

Samehada warbled. When it was listed all together like that, he could easily see just how many cool things the Red Cloud humans had found. Some, like the vampires and the demons like that lady were _bad_, and Samehada growled at those. He would fight anything that tried to hurt his humans. But, as for the rest, they sounded really interesting, and Samehada had to wonder what would be next. Elves? Dragons?! He began to wag his tail and pant. Fire dragons would also be bad, but water dragons would be so much fun to play with! Samehada made cheerful yipping noises at the thought of splashing around in the lake with a water dragon. If the lake was possessed, it might even join in, and then there would be even more to play with!

Kisame grinned at Samehada's joy. "Sounds like someone's an optimist."

His phone rang. He picked up immediately and, for the benefit of the audience, put it on speakerphone. "Hey, Dei. You're on speaker."

"So are you, hm." Deidara cleared his throat. "Hidan's _excited_ to hear about vampires, for some reason. Nagato says he thought of them before, but kept quiet because he didn't want to scare anyone, yeah. It's probably the same for her."

'Let's hope they're not angry at us for fighting in their territory," Kisame thought aloud. "What about the lake?"

There was the sound of muffled conversation. Kisame checked to see how Sakumo and Mitsuki were taking this. Sakumo was taking deep breaths that seemed to be only partially effective, as well as shaking his head back and forth like it was wet. Mitsuki looked thoughtful, and glanced between Kisame and Samehada and the phone.

After a few seconds of muffled conversation, they heard Deidara yelp, "What?! S-seriously?" More muffled conversation followed, in less calm tones of voice.

Deidara came back on. "That was Hidan, apparently. He uses bodies of water to unload all the negative feelings he piles up over time, yeah. He was in the lake all morning and early afternoon."

Kisame's ability to be surprised just...failed. He wondered if it would ever return. "Oh, well, at least we know he's friendly. That's fine."

Dead silence followed this. "Um...are you all right?" Deidara asked cautiously.

"Dangerously so," Kisame replied.

"..."

"Anyway, I had to ask because the wolf guy's interested in knowing what he needs to keep an eye out for. I've told him about the demon kid, the other demons, Jashin, and that place you looked at."

"Hey!" Hidan sounded righteously indignant.

There was a pause as the phone was handed over. "What about the other kid? The sad one?"

"I mentioned him too," Kisame answered. "I just forgot now."

Hidan snorted. "He's the sort of kid that's already got too much experience being forgotten. He deserves better!"

Deidara took his phone back. "Anything else, yeah?"

"I was just about to ask you," was Kisame's answer.

"Say hi to the wolves for me!" _Yahiko. Of course. _

"I can't think of anything else," Nagato concluded. "But we'll probably find something tomorrow."

"Yeah, probably." Kisame shook his head and wondered how concerned he should be at his easygoing tone. "Thanks, everyone. I'll be back tomorrow; the rain sounds heavy."

"Take care, yeah." _*bleep*_

Sakumo had recovered some color by this point. "Well, we don't go near the abandoned houses, especially not at night," he rationalized. "I'll just warn the wolves. These vampires can't be that active."

Kisame rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Hidan said they smelled like nothing except occasionally blood, so tell them to use their eyes, not noses. *sigh* A drink or five would be good right about now."

"I was just thinking the same thing," Mitsuki agreed.

"It's bizarre," Kisame continued. "I'm finding it impossible to be surprised right now. I don't know if I'll recover, or if this is permanent. It feels like my skepticism just gave up."

Mitsuki tugged on his sleeve and began leading them back towards the kitchen. "Good giving up or bad? Ruta might be interested…"

"Not now," Kisame groaned. "Not now."

Samehada growled to chase the bad feelings away and licked Kisame's cheek. If Human Cousin was learning to think like Curious Tiger Person, that was a good thing because it would not hurt to think in the future. He nuzzled Kisame's hair to make his message extra clear. This day had adventures, cousins, fun, and maybe water dragons! As far as Samehada was concerned, it was the _best day ever_.

**In the forest**

The rain was noisy. It made the air cold. But that was alright, because the dark person made a shelter. No rain fell under the shelter. The shelter made the tall tree a good place.

The air was still cold. _Too cold. _Warm stones would be better. There weren't any birds at the tall tree. They were all warm in nests. There was nothing crunchy or good tasting. The dark person had said to wait. So even though the wind was cold, waiting happened. Even though there were no birds, there was waiting. The dark person had been gone a long time.

A bird came. It was all bizarre colors, and streaky. It would not taste good. It was a dark bird. Dark birds were not real birds, and did not taste good. The bird hopped back and forth. It looked like it would be tasty. But it would only be tasty if it was not a dark bird. The bird stopped the game and came under the shelter. It felt the cold air. It made the shelter warm. Warm shelter was much better for waiting than cold shelter. It was a good bird. It had a soft head.

More dark birds came back. This was very, very good. It meant the dark person was back. They filled the sky and covered the forest, just like the real birds. They flew into the shelter and got smaller and smaller until there were no birds and there was only the dark person. The dark person was good. He made warmth. He laughed. He didn't have anything he was supposed to be, so he chose to be kind. That was a good choice.

The dark person laughed. "That was awesome!" he said. "Hey, you like the Sunshiny guy, right? Well, the lady got him and the other guy together, and taught him this thing that he could use to turn into a girl, and he was so embarrassed, but then he got back home and actually used it, and it was awesome! He loved it! He looks so pretty in that form! I don't get why he's so embarrassed, I really don't. And while he was doing that…"

The dark person had so much energy when he was happy. He could fly everywhere and do everything. Even though he was dark, he was bright too. He was all different. The dark person was good.

The dark person was talking about the shark person. "It would've been awesome if you could've seen them! They were lining up for headache pills, just like this." He made a row of birds. "Why do they get headaches when they hear about cool things? They're so weird!"

Weird? The dark person knew everything. How could something be weird? The people must be very interesting. Maybe they knew things. Like how not to be lost. The kind person was not lost. If he was not tired now, kind people could be together. Together means not lost.

The dark person was still talking. "And that's not even getting started on the _ideas_ they were having!" He was so happy. He could go to the moon. It was always a good thing when the dark person was happy.

The shelter turned quiet. The dark person spit out a fire, which made light. His hair looked soft. It was soft! It was soft like the others that left their scraps of fur so they wouldn't get lost. The dark person giggled. He liked his hair being petted. The fire was warm. His head was warm. Everything was good.

"Promise?" the dark person asked. "I know his idea with healing bushes is super awesome and you might have been designed for it, but I like sitting in trees like this. Promise you'll always be here for me?" The dark person was sad. His eyes were big. He looked small like all the others except the big person. _No. Don't be lonely. _Lonely was bad. The dark person was silly. He was good and kind because he wanted to be. He could never be left alone. Did he know?

The dark person smiled. "Aw! You're nice." _Not knowing? _He couldn't be left alone because of himself, not because of anyone else. Why did the dark person not know things? He was supposed to be knowing things. It was like the birds that were supposed to fly. _Scared. _Why did he not know?

**Also in the forest**

A demon and a snake sat together in a tall tree that overlooked the entire forest, and which hosted large quantities of birds during the day. The snake curled into a little ball, squeezing his stuffed toy snake tighter. His eyes watered. He looked greatly upset.

The demon stopped what he was doing and examined this. Why was the little snake upset? He'd brought back news of interesting things; there was nothing bad to report. This was annoying. The demon boy got rather grumpy. He tried holding back his powers so some people could be interesting, and this was what he got? Might as well not have bothered.

"Hey," he demanded. The snake looked up, just a little. The demon boy banished guilty feelings far away. "I won't read your mind. That's the deal I made, with you and that other guy. No mind reading. So why are you sad?"

The snake boy sniffled, and raised a hand to his head. He shook his head from side to side. _What? He wants me to read his mind? _"No. I said no," the demon repeated. He crossed his arms and turned his head away. "Too much mind reading makes things less interesting. You're special, so you get treated specially. And that is _that._" He was fairly sure that was how interestingness worked. Pretty sure. Anyway, who cared? That was his decision, so nobody could question it.

The demon reached out with his darkness to snatch a bird's nest from a nearby tree. The frightened and panicking contents of that nest did wonders to cheer up the snake boy, or at least shut him up. "Cool!" the demon continued. "So you can hang out with this guy and teach him the mysteries of plants and everything. It'll be super fun! It's too bad he already knows about the wood spirits, though. It would've been cool if he'd angered one and it made a tree fall on him or something."

The snake boy looked up. The demon relented. "Okay, so not make a tree fall on him, but _something_ interesting. He'd look cool with a scar!"

The little snake continued to look. The demon relented further. "No, I will _not_ leave him a book on wood spirits. No way. He can not have a scar if he wants, but he's finding them by himself. It's more fun that way!"

The snake boy returned to petting his toy snake softly. The demon sniffed. "Want to go bowling with zombies? I made a bunch of pin shaped ones."

The snake boy was silent. The demon groused. "Well I need something to do! I can't see half of that other guy, and I want to! I'm going crazy here! We need to go bowling. If you don't want to go bowling, I'll just take the other guy bowling instead."

The little snake was still silent. He showed no reaction to the demon's threat at all. The demon boy settled down and mumbled resentfully, "Fine. I'll take him bowling, and I won't have any fun, because this is stupid." Secretly, the stupidity of friendship was the reason why he'd taken it up. There was just nothing to do otherwise. _Why do not-boring things have to be hard? _They weren't, really, but still. Was it natural for a demon to keep ghosts? He didn't know. He knew nothing about any other demon.

"Hey, do demons keep ghosts?" he asked. Maybe the snake would know. It was a little hard to tell what he did and didn't know without using mind-reading powers. If the little snake didn't know, maybe the other guy did.

The snake boy put down his toy snake and crawled into the demon's lap, surprising him. When was the last time he'd been surprised? The demon boy did not remember, and he usually remembered everything he learned. He wrapped his arms around the little snake and stroked the toddler's long black hair. _It does feel kind of nice to pet something like this. Hey, why am I crying? _The demon boy fell into an activity that he indulged in more and more, as other sources of interesting things ran dry. This activity was the contemplation of himself. It didn't make any sense how he could surprise himself, but he did. He had been surprised, for instance, to learn that assuming human shape was the start of an automatic process. Once he did so, he maintained the facade without any conscious effort, including such things as crying and blushing. It was almost like the experience of having a real body.

The snake boy hugged him back. The demon curled up and closed his eyes, focusing only on this: a person who wanted to be with him without any use of powers, who was kind of similar. "Thank you." It was nice to be hugged. The demon boy wondered if that was just part of taking the form of a child. There was still so much he didn't know about himself. He was beginning to think that he was somehow playing hide and seek with himself, using his own soul as the target. The other guy did something similar, didn't he? _I'll ask him. After I invite him zombie bowling, of course, because zombies are the best bowling pins. You just roll a ball of ribs at them and BAM! Legs and everything just go flying! _The demon boy giggled. Zombie bowling was _awesome_ when he could find someone to play with.

.

**A/N: The quote often attributed to Sherlock Holmes is something along the lines of, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."**

**Yep, vampires. Kisame is not wrong. In fact, he's not wrong even about the thing he might think he was wrong about. **

**Sammy is one of the smartest characters in this fic. Water dragons are very awesome. **

**Who's "that other guy"? It's already obvious, but find out for certain next chapter!**


	48. Wonderful

**A/N: Woooo! The title of this chapter comes from how I feel about this chapter and everything contained therein. It's also how the past week has been for me, and just good stuff and yeah.  
**

**There's an omake on this chapter! It's one more thing that is just absolutely fantastic today. More about it in the end notes.**

**Oh! Yesterday, I discovered a post on some other website where the OP said they had cat-like mannerisms. In the comments, there were a whole bunch of other people saying they also had catlike mannerisms, like meowing and headbutting and such. I was the only commenter at that time to say I purred. Man, I had no idea anyone else did that! I thought I was just strange. On a very related note, I love writing Hidan. He's so relatable. Next chapter omake's gonna be about him. **

**.**

**Hidan**

In Hidan's opinion, the best way to wake up was to simply float up out of sleep like a long-submerged bubble breaking free. During such wondrous awakenings, he could swear he felt himself drifting inside his own body. At some point he would gain awareness, and from then on he would observe the gradual changes in his body and mind as he neared awakeness. He always started out feeling cozy and warm, with no idea that moving was a thing, much less desire to move. He would become aware of external temperature, then of his muscles' own heaviness, then of the pleasant smell of the carpet beneath him. It was good that he was too paralyzed to sneeze at that point; the carpet was dusty. He really should vacuum it. Such thoughts were part of Hidan's process of waking up. Suddenly Hidan remembered that there was such a thing as awake, and he was it.

_Hey, I'm awake. _He yawned, and subsequently purred as this movement caused the scythe to slide across his back. Its blades were warm and smooth; he wondered if a snake back there would have felt as pleasant. _Nah. It's mine, which makes it special. _He reached over his back and stroked one of its blades, while still purring. After this, he pushed his belly off the carpet (which it protested), and stretched. Then he laid his protesting belly back down on the fluffy softness and wriggled back and forth, stopping its complaints.

_Mrrow._ He did not deign to actually open his eyelids, but Hidan made his best estimate of the room's lighting conditions from what he saw through his closed eyelids. _Aww, I'm gonna have to get up soon…_ He wondered who he was getting up for, and briefly imagined Nagato. His eyelids opened of their own accord, and Hidan sat up easily. _Alright! Moonlight could use some more hanging out time. _His imaginary tail curled around his leg and flicked at this thought. Hidan looked down and sighed. His tail was imaginary, and tomorrow it would still be imaginary. He looked to his left, where the stiff handle of the scythe had wedged into the carpet, so that only the lowest blade was barely in contact with his back. It was warm, but it would never bend. He sighed again. _Mrrowww. _

Hidan indulged in the sadness for a few more seconds as he stood up, separated himself from the scythe, and grabbed his cloak. _Anyway, yesterday was awesome! _He grinned as he zipped his cloak up to just below his collarbone. Talking with Nagato and Yahiko, just _hanging out_, was not something that Hidan could ever remember doing, now that he thought about it. He'd never just hung out with Kakuzu before, at least not in the same way, and he had the feeling that no such hangouts had occurred before he was eight, either. _Wonder who I was back then?_ He would have had to be someone else, right? _Memories are a part of who you are, and they're not a part of who I am now, so they must have been a part of someone else. That's just d'obvious. The real question is: if I met that fucker now, would I think he was cool or not-cool? _He purred some more at the thought of hanging out with Nagato and Yahiko. They were cool. They were also both highly kissable, in his expert opinion.

Speaking of kissable, he wondered how long it had been since he'd last spent some time with Sammy. _Shit, it's been a while. I'd better at least say Hi. _Hidan leaned out of his doorway and gave the hallway a listen. He heard and felt signs of stirring and activity, but no one was out and doing things yet. More importantly, he did not feel the kind of cheerfulness that Sammy always exuded, so they were clearly not back yet. _Aww. I'll just have to skip directly to Moonlight, then. _

Sometime later, he shook his head in disgust as he cracked open Nagato's door. _That is a bad kind of sleep. No-want. Resist!_ He looked inside. Nagato was nowhere to be seen. Hidan sniffed the door. If he channeled chakra to his nose it boosted his olfactory powers greatly (he'd danced quite a lot after discovering that), but he did not need to do so in such an enclosed environment and for Nagato's scent. _He smells good. I just want to chew on his hair. Rrrrrr. _There was no scent, which proved that Nagato had not left his room. So where was he?

Hidan walked in and sat on Nagato's bed to wait for him, laying the scythe on the bed behind him as he always had to whenever he sat down. Hidan sighed again. It was so very sad that his scythe, for all of its awesomeness, had this one glaring, crucial, utterly unmissable design flaw. How was it usable if its handle was stiff and rodlike? He couldn't sit down or use it as a proper tail or anything! Hidan filed an imaginary complaint with whoever was in charge of its design. That was a _bad move_.

His complaint was registered, but got no response. Hidan crossed his arms and growled churlishly. _Typical! My complaints about the universe never go anywhere._ _Wait, is that a stuffed animal? _It was a stuffed animal. Nagato had one on his bedside table, which Hidan had only just now turned to face. The room was otherwise bare of furnishings or personal touches, but this one bear with its orange, fluffy fur and the biggest, blackest, most innocent eyes made up for all of it. Hidan's eyes got a little moist. He named it Yahiko-bear.

_I can't believe I've been neglecting Hobbes so much. I know Konan's been needing my help a lot, but that's no excuse for leaving him all alone without even a friend. He can be friends with Yahiko-bear! _Hidan nodded firmly. He got up to get Hobbes and introduce the two, and that was when Nagato came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist.

"Uh…" Nagato's response in most such situations was of the "freeze" variety. He also turned rather red. Hidan didn't like this feeling _at all. _It was a feeling of heightened awareness, only turned inside, so he could feel every tickle on his skin and every random twist of his guts. Hidan was ticklish, so being able to feel his skin so acutely was very annoying. He shook himself to get it off of him.

"Heya, Moonlight," he waved cheerfully. He then pointed to Yahiko-bear. "Seeing him makes me feel all guilty for how I didn't even get Hobbes a friend, so he's alone most of the time. You think they'd be good friends?"

Nagato tried to ignore the fact that Hidan was standing between him and his closet. If Hidan didn't care, why should he? "Um...yeah. I think they would be good friends."

Hidan smiled sweetly. He turned and patted the stuffed toy gently on the head. "Stay cute, Yahiko-bear." Then he left.

Nagato took a deep breath as soon as Hidan was gone, the better to relieve the feeling of suffocating with. Hidan was _great_, and having him here wasn't bad or anything, but it was more than a little overwhelming. Nagato rushed into his clothes, breathing a sigh of relief when he was all covered up. He couldn't help noticing that some areas of his shoulders and chest protested being covered up. Those complaints were disregarded.

Privately, he wondered how he and Hidan had managed to come up with the same secret name for the bear without talking. Well, it was a secret for Nagato at least. Officially, the bear was called something less creepy-sounding. Or rather, Nagato thought it might potentially possibly be taken as creepy. Yahiko would probably appreciate the gesture, but he didn't know about the other 65% of the time that Nagato thought of him. Nagato worried that he was obsessed, and that it was unhealthy.

Hidan came back, cradling Hobbes in his arms and gazing down at the tiger with loving eyes. "Here you go, kit," he murmured as he placed Hobbes next to Yahiko-bear. He turned Yahiko-bear so they faced each other. "Hobbes, Yahiko-bear. Yahiko-bear, Hobbes. Be nice to each other."

Nagato found this touching and sweet. "You sound like one experienced in the ways of caring for dolls," he murmured as Hidan joined him on the bed.

"Probably," Hidan confirmed. "I didn't have much of a childhood, but from what I _do_ remember, I liked to talk to books and things that Kakuzu had as if they had feelings. I didn't have any real dolls, though. Did I ever tell you that I don't remember anything from before I was eight?"

Nagato's eyes were wide. "No, I don't think you have. I know you have memory problems - everyone does after that party, at _least_ \- and now I know that you can't see or go near the basement, but I haven't heard of anything else. How could a whole chunk of your life go missing like that?"

Hidan shrugged. "There was probably some reason for it. Kakuzu found me on the side of the road, so I probably ran away. Seems like there might have been something I wanted to forget. But I can't fucking remember what it was!" He threw down his arms and groaned. "Or any of the good parts! I don't remember _anything_ from that time, except how to speak. I already knew how to do that when Kakuzu picked me up. I could also read and write. I had a bunch of skills, actually - didn't do too bad at riding a bike the first time. But things that aren't skills, _information_, I didn't know any of that shit! I remember learning about George Washington for the first time, and that guy who founded Buddhism (he was way more interesting), for example. Y'know. Basic shit."

"Wow." Nagato had so many questions about what it was like to learn things so late. He couldn't remember the vast majority of first and second grade, so he had no idea what it had been like to learn the basic facts that were taught there, but Hidan could remember because he had been older when he learned them. What was an eight-year old's perspective on those topics? Nagato had so many questions.

Hidan continued. "Seriously, I've never been able to get it. Why the fuck would people know all about some guy who led a bunch of ragtag troops to victory, and not know anything about a guy who escaped from imperial prison palaces and made whole discoveries about life and death and shit? He broke out like four times and got dragged back all but the last time! Those adventures are about equal in awesomeness and bravery and coolness, but I gotta give the Buddha extra props for being even less prepared then Georgy. He didn't even know what death and sickness were, but he was still able to think of doing work and hardship and shit. That's fuckin' cool when you think about it, but no, everyone knows about the other guy, just because blah blah heroic vaguely fatherlike figure and all that crap. Did Freud have anything to say about that?"

Nagato replied, "Well, most people learn things about the founding of their country and all that when they're still young enough to think of Mom and Dad as heroes. If you want them to think of those people as heroes, it -" He paused midsentence. "Wait, do you know anything about your parents? Anything at all?"

Hidan shook his head. "Nope. Not a fucking thing. My first memory is of seeing Kakuzu when he came over to see if I was okay. I don't remember anyone else." Hidan looked around, did not find a mirror, and settled for tracing his features with his fingers instead. "I wonder about 'em, though. Where'd I get my face shape from? My eyes? Do I look more like my dad or like my mom? Does my hair remember who brushed it way back when?" He rubbed his hair between his fingers. "I guess I don't _need_ to know, but it'd be nice."

Nagato softly put a hand on his shoulder. "Um…" He shifted uncomfortably. "I, um… I knew my parents. I got my hair from my mother."

Hidan tried to picture a woman with Nagato's hairstyle. "Hey, that would look good on a lady." He folded his hands in his lap and looked at Nagato like a disciple seeking wisdom. "What was she like?"

Nagato looked down. "She was smart. Dad said I also got my brains from her. She took care of me. She took care of everyone. I remember…" He bit his lower lip. "She patted me on the head sometimes and told me I was a good boy and I'd grow up to be a good man. 'Now eat your vegetables!'"

Hidan patted Nagato on the head. "She was totally fucking correct." He watched Nagato smile and start to cry at the same time.

The redhead laughed quietly and wiped his cheeks. "Thank you," he whispered.

Hidan took his hand back. "You mind if I ask about the vegetables? What's up with those? I've never had a problem with plants."

Nagato laughed some more. "Neither did I. It's just a trope by this point, that kids and vegetables don't get along. I don't really know either."

"I just see myself as a giant monster. 'Fear me! All your cellulose will not save you!' And I tear them asunder, break them like the pretentious assholes they are, or, in the case of broccoli, graze peacefully on trees. I just destroy those fuckers," Hidan explained. "How was your dad?"

Nagato sniffled. "He didn't really know what to do _with_ me, but he could get pretty fierce _for_ me. Even if I had trouble talking with him, I knew he loved me. We had trouble understanding each other, but even if he understood nothing at all, I can still see him standing there at my wedding." Nagato sobbed. His head hung down, hiding both of his eyes. He curled up and made muffled noises of pain into his knees.

Hidan's eyes misted too. He fought to clear them. _No, it didn't happen to me, it's not… Did my dad love me like that? _He shook his head and scooted closer to Nagato, laying a hand over the redhead's shoulders. _Weddings are very sad topics._

Hidan's breath shook. He closed his eyes, and felt himself dip dangerously low before he opened them again. _Oh, crap._ The sadness felt nice, but it softened him, opening up weak spots where he could change in response to outside influence. Ordinarily, making someone sad was good because they could change for the better. Being sad now was the opposite of a good thing for Hidan. He could feel the energy leaving him, his emotions drying up. _Bad sleep. Bad. _He stayed sitting with his arm across Nagato's shoulders, but he no longer felt the same about it. It felt odd, like something he wasn't deliberately doing, but just a part he was acting out. _It's what I do. I'm the helpful guy. _Hidan supposed it was good to have _that_ as his part, instead of some other role.

**Nagato**

Nagato wiped his eyes. "I don't...really know who I'm going to have at my wedding now," he whimpered. "Or if I'm going to have one. Who would love me like that even if they didn't understand?"

Hidan was silent. His understanding had gone, but so had the strong emotions including love, so he didn't have an answer. Nagato looked up. "Hidan? Are you okay?"

Hidan took his arm back, with great effort. "Mmm." He shook his head as if shaking off water. "It feels like falling, like being buried," he muttered. "Like something setting into concrete. It won't ever change back. That's what it feels like. I know I can feel different, but it doesn't feel like I can. It feels like death - forever and ever and ever." He sighed and leaned forward, barely stopping himself from toppling to the floor.

Nagato grabbed his shoulder in concern. "Hidan -" Hidan groaned. _Oh no. Is he going to be okay? _Hidan's face twisted. Whatever was happening inside him showed no signs of slowing. Nagato tightened his grip. _I don't want him to look like this. I have to do something. _Nagato wondered what he could do. Yahiko had problems, Hidan had problems, everyone Nagato cared for most had something troubling them. And their troubles weren't going away. Nagato fought back frustration. The good moments didn't last very long in this place, and he was starting to get tired of that. _What can I do for them? How do I go about fighting this? I don't know where to start. _But then, he thought of his father. His father would do anything. He also thought of his mother, and the heart and mind he'd inherited from her. Hidan shook off Nagato's hand, mumbling that he was fine. _That's not true. _Nagato felt his courage firm up inside him. _I can do anything too. I will. _He pushed Hidan backwards onto the bed. "Stay here," he ordered.

Nagato left him there and walked straight down the hall to Konan's room, a very short distance. He opened the door slowly, eliciting minimal noise. "Konan?" he whispered.

Konan opened her eyes. She lifted her arm, flexed it, then wrestled herself vertical. "Thank you." She nodded gratefully at Nagato. "For the disturbance."

He looked back at his room, then turned and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him softly. "This is enough," he declared. "I don't want Hidan to feel the way he just told me he felt, or anyone else. Seeing my best friends worried and unhappy is getting old. I don't like it."

Konan latched on to the strength in his words, drawing power from them. "What will you do?" she challenged.

Nagato looked at her. He saw the way she was sitting up straighter and her eyes were more open. _Did I do that? _One answer to that question would be helpful, the other would not be. Nagato chose the helpful answer. _I did._ He sat down on the edge of the bed, facing her. "Anything," he challenged back.

His answer seemed to please her. He watched a flicker of a smile work its way around her lips. She lifted her hand and curled it into a fist, watching it as she did so. "I've recovered some chakra," she told him. "Not half the amount I usually have, and my reserves are only just beginning to be restored, but enough for now."

Nagato's eyes widened. "Wait," he muttered slowly. Some things clicked into place in his mind. "Chakra… is connected to emotions? How you feel?"

Konan questioned him with her gaze. "Of course it is, just like electricity. Chakra is very similar to electricity, actually. It can use the same pathways."

"So low chakra affects your mind as well as your body," Nagato realized.

"Both are the same," Konan corrected him. "They aren't separate."

"Not completely," Nagato agreed. "But people in this world don't have chakra, remember? They don't have that extra connection between the two. The mind and body _can_ affect each other, obviously, but it's not as straightforward as that. If the body's tired, that has little to do with how tired the mind is in this world. The body and mind don't line up as closely as that. I didn't think that your feeling poorly had anything to do with your chakra," he concluded.

Konan blinked. The connection had always been so obvious. She had never thought that a person could fail to see it before. "What did you think was the cause?"

"Whatever was going on with your mind before," Nagato answered. "I thought your brain was obviously recovering from whatever had been wrong with it, and physical exhaustion was a contributor. I wasn't wrong, but if chakra also affects the mind, than it's a much _bigger _contributor than I thought."

He tilted his head back and sighed. "Although, now that I think about it, Hidan's mentioned that his chakra feels strange when you're feeling strange, so there had to be at least a one-way connection. I can't believe I missed that! We've just been providing food and letting you catch up on sleep, and waiting for your brain chemistry to balance itself out. _Nobody_ thought that donating chakra or something would help get your mind back in balance. I have plenty of chakra; I could've…"

Konan grabbed his forearm. "It's not your fault. That would have helped, but not all of the way. I do need reassurance, and patience, and everything Hidan's been providing over the past few days." She hesitated. Then, in a strained whisper: "I even needed that funeral."

Nagato sighed. "The worst part is, Deidara was sweeping his brain with chakra to keep himself from feeling tired before we fought the succubus. That should've been a flashing neon clue right there." He looked down at her hand on his forearm. "But thank you."

Konan nodded. "In my world, nobody would expect a patient who was critically low on chakra to feel anything other than tired and unhappy. It's part of general knowledge." She looked down and wondered aloud, "How many other things that are general knowledge am I overlooking?"

Nagato, too, wondered about his knowledge. _What things seem so obvious to me that they're invisible? How much of the world is actually completely invisible to me? How much of it do I need to see, and can I see any of it without first tripping over it like I did now? _He didn't like contemplating the slippery nature of his own mind, but it had to be done in order to help anyone else. _Hidan helps other people effectively, so he must have figured himself out. Maybe he could give me advice._

"I have an idea," he announced. "General knowledge is like unseen knowledge that fills in the gaps in formal lessons, right? So, you should tell us everything _else_, everything that you know we need to know. We'll be able to spot the gaps. And, if you think there's something you're missing about a topic that everyone else seems to understand, we could do the same."

Konan nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good idea." Her face flickered with pain, so briefly that Nagato almost thought he'd imagined it before he sternly reminded himself never to brush off anything as imagination. "What do you wish to know about chakra?"

"Let's follow up on what you said about chakra being similar to electricity," Nagato decided. "The same pathways… what did you mean by that?"

**Deidara**

Deidara yawned before pushing open the door to the shed. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," Sasori replied. "What time is it?" His stomach complained audibly.

"Breakfast time, yeah," Deidara answered. "You should take a break, yeah."

Sasori closed his eyes, exhaled meditatively, and put down his pencil. As he followed Deidara out into the cool morning air, his eyes widened. "This air…" He chose not to finish that thought aloud. "Thank you," he told Deidara, with great sincerity.

"Yeah!" Deidara chuckled. "Good thing I'm here, yeah? Who else would remind you to come out of your cocoon sometimes?"

Sasori smiled. "My thought bubble is nice, but you do have a point." He took a deep breath, watching the fog from his exhale drift into the sky. "I_ thought_ such heavy rain had to mean a cold front was coming in."

"Yeah, this is a good distance to have to walk, hm." Deidara was quite happy to step foot inside once more.

.

"So, I've been wondering who it should be," Deidara said over breakfast. "I did try to think of what I need to practice, yeah, but then Kisame called and I didn't get back to it."

Sasori tilted his head as he chewed his turkey sandwich. Upon swallowing, he said, "This sounds like a good idea. Our originals sound powerful, but also like a bunch of antisocial jerks. We probably have an advantage over them in teamwork. Partnering up for training would maximise our greatest strength. It's perfect for us."

He put the sandwich down and folded his hands, resting his chin upon them. "I think that's what we should be doing: maximising our strengths. It's no good fretting about all the things we can't do as well as they could. For you, let's see… You have a bird to fly around on, so you're pretty mobile. Big explosives are out since we're next to a forest, but you might be able to use small explosives as projectiles, like throwing firecrackers. You're better at hand to hand fighting than I am, but not by much. What you're good at is speed and distance."

"I've already trained with Konan," Deidara reminded him. "She's pretty good at the same things, yeah. But I'm not really sure about her, which goes against what you said about teamwork, yeah."

"Hidan's pretty fast," Sasori suggested. "He's no good at distance, though."

"Itachi has his eyes, but that kind of goes _against_ my flying, rather than working with it," Deidara said.

"Kakuzu and Kisame are out, because they're not remotely at your level in hand to hand," Sasori declared. "I'd need a lot more practice with Laurie before I could help you, and I wouldn't be able to do a lot because I have to build something. Nagato's not any faster than usual, and he has way too many powers. Yahiko's similar, except he uses water, and I've heard that he's going to try something different."

Deidara tapped his fork against his plate. "Let's revisit Hidan, yeah. His scythe isn't helpful, but Konan makes weapons to throw, right? He can use those. And anyway, isn't not being able to catch someone at a distance a really big disadvantage for him? He _should_ learn how to do that."

"If he does, you and that bird will get a lot of evasive maneuvers practice," Sasori said. He was imagining a fight between them now. "And he's energetic enough to keep up with you. Not to mention, Konan said your originals worked well together, when they felt like it. Yeah, I'm starting to warm up to that idea."

"Cool, yeah!" Deidara stabbed his breakfast with more force than necessary. "Thanks."

"No problem," Sasori replied. But he was smiling.

.

Dei, almost literally, stumbled into Hidan by accident in the halls.

"Sorry!" Hidan apologized. "I was just in a hurry to see if Sammy's back yet. It's been a while; I wanted to at least say Hi."

"And I was just going to find you, so we were both going somewhere," Deidara summarized. "I had this idea, yeah." He waved for Hidan to walk with him as they headed to Kisame's room.

"Training?" Hidan asked. "I know, I know, I'm the one who had the freakin' idea and I still haven't gotten the materials, but I'm working on it, okay?"

"Huh?" Deidara looked at him. "What idea?"

Hidan blinked. "No one told you guys? You did come in after I mentioned it…" He shrugged. "Well, anyway, I had this awesome idea for the other training room, the one that doesn't have the targets. I wanted to set up punching bags and shit. Ooh, speaking of which, I've got materials to get. Not just the punching bags, that other thing."

Now it was Deidara's turn to be lost. "I have no idea what you're talking about, hm."

Hidan elbowed him. "Remember when Konan told us about our originals and their powers? She said something then that she hadn't told _me_ when I asked. She said my original could throw the scythe, 'cause he had it on a rope of some kind. So there I was, thinking that I'd gotten a total of jack and shit from him, but no, I actually can do more than fight someone face to face. Would've been nice to know when she first told me what my abilities were," he grumbled.

They got to Kisame's room, which was the last one before the basement stairs. It was silent. Hidan opened the door just a crack, and closed it almost immediately. "Figured. At least he sounds like he's having fun over there."

Deidara laughed. "Man, that lines up perfectly, yeah!" He punched Hidan in the shoulder playfully. "You want to be training partners?"

Hidan rubbed his chin. "Constantly chasing a moving target that fucking flies? **Fuck yes**," he proclaimed. "But… Fuck! I would need a lot of practice with throwing it more accurately and shit. All _he_ was interested in was getting enough blood for a taste, and then he had this other thing that could kill someone no matter where they were. But that ability's fucking stupid, and too fatal to use anyway, so I've got catch-up work to do in order to use this thing as an actual weapon, and not just a blood collecting service." Hidan looked to his right, at the training rooms. "That's what I had planned for the one with the targets. But it would take a lot of time and shit."

"That's okay, yeah," Deidara reassured. "Let's just have a fight to see what we can do right now, with no training. Then you can practice throwing your thing, and I can practice flying with my bird and throwing my stuff, yeah."

Hidan held up a fist. "Cool beans."

Deidara bumped it. "Yeah!"

They stood there awkwardly for a couple seconds. "So, when do you want to…" _I actually haven't thought this through, yeah. _

Hidan gestured backwards at his scythe. "Can't, until I find a rope. It didn't come with one when I got it."

"Cool, cool," Deidara said forcefully. _That's actually a huge relief, yeah! It gives me time to figure things out. _"I actually need some time too. I haven't practiced flying in small spaces, but we've got trees around here so I need to, yeah."

"It might take me a few hours to greet Sammy and go shopping," Hidan estimated. "That should be plenty of time to find a good spot somewhere on this street and practice staying between the buildings."

Deidara stopped everything he was doing at the mention of the street. "Uh, how far do you think would be, um, safe?" he muttered while scratching his head. "That kid -"

"Is fine," Hidan reassured. "He'd love it! The actual grounds would make a bad place, because we'd be distracted by how fucking creepy they are, but anywhere far enough to not be distracting should be fine."

Deidara nodded. Hidan raised a hand in farewell. "So, I need to be getting shit. Hey!" He turned back. "If you see Moonlight around, tell him I said thanks a bunch. He helped Konan out of a thing that was weighing me down. Fuckin' amazing." And he left.

_Konan?_ Deidara remembered what else he'd been thinking about last night. _Yeah! I should go see if she's okay. _He smiled at a memory that he now remembered as pleasant. _She's not bad. If he needs more time than I do, I wouldn't mind testing myself against her, yeah. _He went to go see her.

**Konan**

"So _that's_ how that works…" Nagato looked down at the short rod Konan had retrieved from her hip pouch and handed to him. His head tilted in that subtle way that indicated he was thinking. Konan had just finished explaining that chakra's similarity to electricity was how the Six Paths Jutsu worked, so she wasn't surprised that he needed time to think. _Even I consider it a controversial jutsu. And that was after we used it the first time to create Tendo…_

A sour feeling swallowed her insides again, and her hands reflexively clenched into fists, as if she was going to fight someone. Konan struggled to make them relax. _It's only temporary. That paralyzed feeling felt as if it was set in stone, but it was set in very flaky stone. Hearing a single word was enough to break it. I can feel differently. It doesn't have to hurt to think of Yahiko. I can learn to function around him. _She opened her eyes and thought of Nagato's strength, borrowing it. The sour feeling abated. Konan smiled at her little victory over herself.

Nagato held up the rod just before his eyes. "If that's how it works, then I could use it for other things. I wouldn't ever use it on dead bodies, but the basic principles could -"

There was a polite knocking at the door. "Can I come in?" Deidara asked.

Konan flared her chakra, giving herself a little boost. "Yes."

Deidara pushed the door open, slid inside, and closed it behind him. "Hey, looks like you're doing well, yeah!" He looked backwards at the wall. "I just met Hidan, and he told me you'd been feeling bad, yeah. Speaking of which -" He turned to Nagato. "He wanted me to tell you he's really grateful, yeah. Or I think it was you he wanted me to tell - all he said was 'tell Moonlight,' yeah."

"That's me," Nagato confirmed. "He and Itachi have good eyes for symbolism. They both think of me and Yahiko as being like the sun and moon. I have yet to ask why." Nagato looked at the door. "As soon as I'm done here, I'm going to ask Itachi."

"What are you doing, yeah? What's that thing?"

Nagato turned up his left hand. "This is a chakra rod, that I can produce from my arms. It's not _quite_ as freaky as it sounds. Konan was just telling me some things about how chakra works as it relates to these rods."

"Cool." Deidara suppressed a shiver. He turned back to Konan. "So, I asked Hidan to be my training partner, yeah. Figured I'd take some burdens off your shoulders. He said yes, but he wants to do a lot of training alone first to use his scythe better. I'm planning on doing the same, yeah, but in case he needs more time than I do, do you think you'd be up to helping me out?"

An exceedingly pleasant shiver went up Konan's spine at the mention of training, like a string of lights turning on and shining. _Thank the gods, training!_ A small smile made it onto her face. "I would, very much. Training is comfortable, a regular part of the life I'm used to. It feels surprisingly good to hear you suggest that. I must have missed it terribly."

Deidara grinned. "Maybe you can come watch, yeah! Hidan and I planned to have one serious match before we'd done any training at all, just to see where we are. It'll be in a few hours, after he's gotten a rope for his thing, and it'll be somewhere on this street."

Nagato raised the hand holding the rod. "May I invite myself? This is the first time we've done anything like this - _everyone_ will want to watch."

Deidara looked down. "Hmm. Well… as long as everyone stays out of the way, like on rooftops or several yards away, that could be okay, yeah."

Konan nodded. "Of course I will watch. Members of the original Akatsuki did not train with each other, so I have seen you fight together only rarely, and only as a serious battle where someone was in danger of dying. It would be interesting to see training matches where the style of fighting would be very different."

Deidara nodded. "Yeah! Sasori phrased it as 'maximising our advantages.' We're better at teamwork, so we'd better exploit that for everything we can, yeah." He clenched his fists. "So what if Other Me's more comfortable with big bombs, yeah? I can be just as good! I'd like to rub it in his stupid, psychopathic face how much better I am without being a psycho, yeah!"

Nagato nodded. "I was just thinking of how I can use the same techniques, but for much better purposes. We don't have to only learn from them. It doesn't have to be one way."

Deidara grinned. "That's just it, yeah! Woah… I'm all fired up now, yeah! I'm gonna go wash the bird off, get him ready for flight, and figure out which yard it's gonna be in, yeah!"

"I'll message Hidan and tell him to hurry up," Nagato said while pulling out his phone. He did just that after Deidara raced away.

Konan sat flabbergasted while he did so. _They're competing with their originals? _She had feared that telling them about their originals would frighten them. And this fear had been proven correct; she knew several of them were strongly doubting if they wanted to have anything to do with a ninja's life. Deidara, in particular, had had that strongly negative reaction when she first mentioned the explosives, and had seemed afraid of his powers. _But now, he's no longer afraid of his original. He's angry. In the absence of fear, disliking their originals and wanting to be different and better than them could actually be _helpful_ in training. _Some of the ever-present darkness lifted, and Konan smiled broadly. The world was so much better than she had expected!

Nagato finished his message in time to see her. He smiled back, mirror neurons firing rapidly. "What are you thinking about?"

Konan relaxed her face back to usual, but the light inside diminished very little. "I always worried that telling you of your originals' crimes would drive you away. I never expected competition to set in. Today is filled with good surprises and hope."

Nagato nodded. "Actually, I think every day is, but how well they're hidden varies. I agree that it _is_ very obvious today."

Konan closed her eyes to better savor this peaceful feeling, and hoped Nagato was right. _I will choose to believe he is. That way, I can at least make an effort to find them. _

There was another quiet knocking at the door.

**Yahiko**

"May I come in?" he asked.

"Yes," Konan replied immediately. Yahiko's heart skipped several beats. _She's letting me into her room, while she's conscious, and so easily, too?! _He gasped in joy and opened the door, closing it quickly behind him.

_Woah. _Yahiko was taken aback by the sight of her sitting up in bed, without her cloak. He had decided to wear his cloak, to make a good impression. Now he felt overdressed, since Nagato was in normal clothes as well. _It's fine. They both think I look good in it, right? _

Nagato smiled broadly. "Yahiko! There's good news." He invited Yahiko to sit on the bed next to him, and turned to face Yahiko as he did so. "I'll summarize: chakra is connected to the mind, so Konan's feeling much better now that she's recovered some. In the future, we could look into donating chakra if she runs low and feels poorly again. Deidara's going to have a match with Hidan in a few hours, and he's inviting people to watch. And, best of all…" He held up the rod. "Konan's been telling me more about what chakra is and how it can be used!"

"Really?!" Yahiko giggled. He'd been hoping to help her feel better by telling her about their idea from the night before, so the first piece of news was mind-blowing enough. Everything else was just _astounding!_ He giggled some more. _Wow, things are really looking up! _"What'd you learn?"

Konan looked away from the incredible aura of happiness he was radiating. Her chest burned, and she could feel the ghostly sensation of being stabbed. It was hard to breathe all of a sudden. She wondered once more why she felt this way about him being happy. She loved him and wanted him to be happy. This was _good._ So why did seeing him happy make her react so badly?

She pushed that aside with her newly gathered strength. "Chakra is similar to electricity, and can be adapted to use the same pathways. That's how the Six Paths Jutsu works - by inserting chakra rods into a dead body, the rods come into contact with the body's nervous system. The rods are sensitive to chakra signals Nagato sends; they receive those signals and channel the chakra into the body's nervous system, stimulating it. The rod also sends signals back, so that Nagato - or anyone with the Rinnegan - can use the senses of all 6 bodies, seeing through their eyes. One rod is enough for this, although control gets finer as more rods are used. It also looks more stylish."

Nagato held up the rod. "This is the kind of rod she's talking about. I can make them from my arm, somehow."

Yahiko wrinkled his brow. One of the things she had said was clicking with him. _Chakra can go into a body and stimulate it? Is that what she said? _"Did you say stimulate?"

"Yes." His aura had retreated, allowing her to look next to him. "Even dead tissue can be activated, temporarily, by chakra. In living tissue, channeling chakra makes it stronger and more energetic."

Yahiko's eyes widened. "So healing -" He waved his arms around while he sorted out what order to say things in. "So healing is the body growing, and if chakra gives more energy, then that has to do with medical jutsu!" _Yes! _"I need to practice using my chakra to stimulate tissues and make them grow! That has to be it!"

Konan's eyes widened. "Of course...basic healing involves applying chakra directly to wounded flesh. That makes sense."

Nagato gasped. "Y-yeah!" He gave up his attempts to hold back and hugged Yahiko. "That's great!" Nagato was well aware that the happy feeling in the air was getting to him, making his joy greater than it would have been otherwise. He wasn't hysterical yet, so he allowed it.

Yahiko hugged him back. _Now I just need something to practice with! _

There was a not-so-gentle knock at the door. "Who's making all this noise?" It was Kisame.

Yahiko looked at Konan, who nodded. She pulled the blanket up higher to cover herself and wondered how many people were going to be stopping by before she had a chance to get her cloak. It was getting ridiculous. Yahiko opened the door.

"Nagato had good news for me, which I was very excited about," he explained. "Hi!" he waved to Samehada. The shark rattled happily.

"Oh, it's you." Kisame relaxed. "Thank god. I passed through the back yard and was scared out of my wits by that demon kid shouting at me. He told me to get you. You'd better go see what he wants."

Samehada chirred questioningly as Kisame left. Yahiko saw him shudder one last time, as if shaking off the demon boy's traces. He closed the door partway, turning back to Nagato and Konan. "Sorry, I should…"

Konan's eyes were narrowed, and her shoulders straight with alertness. "As far as I know, this is the first time he's come to reach us here," she murmured. "I am not inclined to take that as good news. Be careful."

Nagato nodded. "Ask him why he's here."

Heavy footsteps sounded from the hallway. Yahiko opened the door again to see Kisame come back. "Sorry, almost forgot to mention something," the shark man began. "I thought of it last night, when Sakumo looked worried after I told him about the demon kid. Ask the kid what he thinks of the Hatake Clan. I remember someone saying that he finds _us_ interesting, and that's good, but what about them? Are they safe?" Samehada whined. The shark had not thought of that possibility. "Oh, and he might be visiting soon," Kisame said to Konan. "Sakumo's just that good-hearted a guy; he's already concerned about you. I told him to come in the morning, whenever he decides to." Kisame thought of everything else he'd experienced at their cabin. "Oh, and there's this one guy, Ruta, who's not at all freaked out by learning that he's a ninja. He wants to know all about it, and come up with categories and shit to organize all of our knowledge. If he actually was an ordinary guy of this world, he'd be a scientist. So he's probably going to be coming over as well. That's all I can remember that's urgent." Kisame left again, for real this time.

"Okay…" Yahiko sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Ask about the Hatake Clan, ask why he's here, be alert in case in case he's playing tricks. Got it." He waved at Nagato and Konan. Nagato waved back. Yahiko stepped out into the hallway and proceeded towards the back of the building.

He saw the demon boy sitting in midair on a platform of darkness as he came out onto the back stoop. "Hi-hi!" the demon boy waved.

"Hi," Yahiko waved back. "Um...I have questions."

The demon boy nodded. "I'm here because it's where Shark Guy was going, so it was convenient. I don't go near those people at all actually; I just leave them alone all the time. I don't do anything even _near_ them, and no you don't get to know why. As for why I wanted to talk to you, well, I'm the only one of us that can talk." The demon gestured at the ground to his left.

"Only one of -" Yahiko started at the sight of another little boy running his hands through the grass in the indicated place. _How did I miss him?! He's not _that_ invisible! Wait, didn't Hidan mention not seeing him too? _Yahiko sighed in relief. So he wasn't going blind, or at least he wasn't the only one. The toddler's whitish clothing did blend in surprisingly well with the light shining off the grass, but Yahiko still had no idea how he'd managed to miss the long black hair.

"You might have noticed him if you were normal," the demon speculated. "It might have something to do with that feeling chakra ability you guys have. He's all wrapped up, looking small and not making much of a splash in the chakra. A normal person would've been using their eyes, so they might've seen him. He might be _anywhere_, and you would never know…" The demon whispered this last directly into Yahiko's ear in a spooky tone of voice. _When and how did he get back there?!_

"It's a mystery!" the boy chirped. "Hey, do you know where that other guy is? I want to go zombie bowling."

"Who?" Yahiko didn't know who "that other guy" was.

"Oh, come on, you know who I'm talking about." The demon sounded impatient. "Big, powerful, super important, plays hide and seek with himself? And with me… Grrr, not seeing most of him is driving me nuts!" The demon boy was getting increasingly aggravated. Yahiko struggled to find something to say that would defuse him. _What do demons do when they get angry? What can I do to stop it? _

The little snake hugged his toy snake closer. That was when the back door opened again. "Yes!" Hidan exclaimed. "I'd know that sadness anywhere. Hey, kid."

"Oy!" The demon boy popped up directly in front of Hidan. Hidan rolled his eyes. "Go zombie bowling with me!" the demon insisted.

Hidan rubbed his chin. "How's Konan?" he asked Yahiko.

"She's better than I've ever seen her," Yahiko answered. It was true - he couldn't remember her ever seeming excited and happy in his entire experience with her.

"Alright then!" Hidan turned back to the demon boy. "I'll go, but only on one condition. I'm in the mood for bright green and sparkles this time."

"Yeah!" The demon boy nodded. "Bright green and sparkly zombies, to go!"

"Oh fuck yes." Hidan rubbed his hands together eagerly. He turned to Yahiko and explained, "Zombie bowling's when you roll a huge ball of bones, mostly ribs but some others too, at some zombies. Their limbs just go flying _everywhere_. It's pretty cool."

"You want to go bowling with people's dead family members?" Yahiko was horrified. Did the demon boy really use the cemetery as his own personal playground of the dead? _I am never playing as a necromancer in any game again! _

Hidan shrugged. "Only the ones that've been ignored for a while. And it's usually the same batch of dead guys each time, too - if he holds them together, his darkness doesn't make them fall apart for a good dozen or more bowling sessions." He shrugged. "Anyway, look after her for me, and be nice with the kid." The demon boy giggled and disappeared, while Hidan took off running in the direction of town.

Yahiko's jaw flapped up and down as he stared after them for who knows how long. _Hidan? What? _It was a shock to be so forcibly reminded that, even if they had fought a demon together, he didn't actually know the other members of the Akatsuki as well as he knew Nagato. _They do have other lives, things I don't know about. Right. _But even so, _zombies? _He never would've predicted Hidan would be into that.

A mild tugging at his cloak brought Yahiko back to reality. He looked down to see the snake boy holding his cloak. The boy looked up, allowing Yahiko to see that he really did have snake eyes and he really did look very sad. Yahiko's eyes welled up with compassion. _A toddler? Oh my god, what's he been through? What does he need? _He obviously could survive on his own, as demonstrated by his perfectly healthy appearance, but Yahiko thought he must be very lonely. It was possible the demon was the only one looking out for him. Yahiko's estimation of what kind of person the demon was rose many notches.

The toddler was still holding his cloak. He returned to looking at the red cloud on it. Yahiko let him. _Poor kid… He's adorable, too. Who would leave behind a cute kid? Even if they hated snakes or something, I can't imagine anyone who could be so cruel. _

The boy let go of Yahiko's cloak and backed up. Yahiko knelt down to talk to him. "Hey." The little snake was silent. "Um...I'm Yahiko. Do you have a name?"

The little snake's eyes tightened, and he squeezed the toy snake tighter. "Okay, that's all right," Yahiko backpedaled. "Um…" _Why is he here? _Yahiko looked around the backyard as he tried to figure that out. His gaze landed almost immediately on the stone platform filled with flowers. _Of course! Hidan smelled snake the night it appeared. He must be here to help me with plants and things! _

"I learned some really interesting things about healing," Yahiko told him. "I think I know how to do it now. You're the one that made all those beautiful flowers grow out of the stone, right?"

The snake nodded. Yahiko giggled. "Thank you! They look beautiful. I have no idea how you did that, but it's amazing. Can you show me?"

The little snake's lips trembled. Yahiko grinned as they lifted upwards, just a little. The toddler lifted his toy snake off his shoulder and held it out. Yahiko patted it, as he remembered Hidan had done. _Wow, it's very soft! _

The snake boy turned and looked around the backyard, before moving too quickly and silently for a normal toddler over to the far edge where the forest began, beyond the stone with the flowers. Yahiko followed him, and sat down across from where the boy sat down. The boy pointed at the grass between them.

Yahiko's brow furrowed as he tried to interpret this. _First Samehada, now him. I need to learn how to interpret people who can't speak ASAP. _"Are you going to show me?" he asked. "I mean, does this have to do with using powers?"

The boy nodded almost imperceptibly, and pointed at Yahiko. Yahiko could understand this. "You want me to use my powers?" The toddler nodded.

"Okay." Yahiko reached out to touch the grass. _Do I actually need to touch it? If it was a real wound, that seems like it would make the wound worse, introduce bacteria or something. She said Nagato could send signals. _Yahiko let his fingers brush the tallest blades of grass, and channeled chakra. He imagined his chakra reaching out of his hand, absorbing into the patch of grass. He continued to channel his chakra in this way even after being stunned to see the air between his hands and the grass blades fill with some kind of greenish light. _Am I actually looking at my chakra? _He channeled more chakra, and the green glow intensified. He noticed that it sparkled.

Yahiko let his chakra return to normal and sat, breathing deeply. _Woah. That felt like using a second secret set of muscles I didn't know about, kind of. _He could feel the places where the chakra had come from in his hand. He'd investigate that later.

For now, he looked closely at the grass, and cheered internally to see that the patch was greener than before. He hadn't noticed the occasional strands of brown or tan, but they had been there all the same, and now they were healthy and green. The grass did not look any longer, though. "I guess it doesn't work the same for me as for you," he told the snake boy. "Maybe using medical jutsu doesn't transfer enough chakra for it to grow, only enough to heal, or maybe giving something chakra doesn't make it grow that way. It looks like we have different powers."

The toddler nodded. He reached out with one hand. Yahiko felt energy following towards the boy, as if he was gathering it. _He's a powerhouse! _Naturally, the energy Yahiko felt quickly started to flow off of him, pouring from the boy in a faint greenish glow.

The grass immediately responded, stretching upwards as if reaching for the boy's hand. Yahiko's jaw dropped as he saw this happen to all the of the grass surrounding the toddler. For about half a foot around the boy, the grass grew very, very green and reached upward, until it was a couple inches higher than the surrounding grass. That was when the boy stopped and stood up, revealing that the grass he had been sitting on had grown the most. It did not appear to be the worse for him sitting on it.

_A - a - amazing…_ Yahiko was so entranced by this that he did not notice the other effects of the boy's power until he shook himself and stood up, at which point he noticed that his pants had new holes in them at the ends of his knees where they had come closest to the patch of grass. Yahiko stared at these holes, and reached out to touch them. The weakened, frayed strands of fabric disintegrated when he touched them. They felt different, changed. He felt the material of his pants around the hole on his left knee. It was discolored and looked as different as it felt. Yahiko's instincts told him it would rip very easily if he pulled on it at all. He recalled that this pair of pants had a high cotton content. _Is it rotten? _

The boy touched his right leg, alerting Yahiko to his movement. He followed the little snake a few feet into the forest, where there was a fallen branch. The snake boy turned and put out a hand. Yahiko stayed back as requested. The toddler touched the fallen branch and repeated the demonstration.

The fallen branch immediately discolored and began to flake. Moss, fungi, and plants began to sprout from it. The branch creaked as it lost structural integrity, and the uplifted end of it sagged and broke off. Plants that must have been growing in the soil beneath it thrust upward through its decaying wood. In only half a minute, the branch was no more. Only a few separated chunks of wood that was already half-dirt remained when the little snake stopped. A dandelion was already sprouting out of the new dirt, looking very healthy and exuberant as it did so.

Yahiko's lower jaw had fallen and wasn't going to get back up any time soon. _So he makes injured things heal, living things grow, and dead things rot? _And all with that strange green-white glow that Yahiko could barely see coming off him. And his power worked on an area of effect around the boy, not directed even when he put out a hand.

Yahiko looked at this strange, powerful, and amazing child with wonder. "What _are_ you?"

.

**A/N: Oh no. In this chapter, there was an opportunity for a joke about wordplay. I started to write the joke but then I realized I couldn't include it. The wordplay only works in English, and the problem with that is, I have no idea if the characters are speaking English or not.  
**

**I know it's already been confirmed that this story takes place somewhere in America, but it's a weird town with NPCs in it. I have been flip-flopping back and forth on this issue for the entire runtime of this story. On the one hand, they're in America. On the other hand, Konan comes from the Narutoverse where they speak Japanese, and she hasn't received any memories to become part of this world. So I have yet to make up my mind whether they are actually speaking English, or if it's just rendered as English for convenience. I will allow the readers to make their own choice. **

**If you choose to believe they are speaking English, insert the following lines of dialogue into this scene: **Deidara looked down. "Hmm. Well… as long as everyone stays out of the way, like on rooftops or several yards away, that could be okay, yeah."

"Will that be far enough for safety?" Konan asked. "Hidan told me this part of this world has a different measurement system. Several meters does not sound far enough."

"Huh?" Deidara shook his head. "No, I didn't mean _that_, I meant grass yards. Lawns."

"Ah, that makes more sense." ~continue scene from here~ *This dialogue does not count as part of this story's canon*

**If you choose to believe they are not speaking English, just ignore the suggested lines of dialogue. From now on, every time this situation occurs, I will ignore it in the chapter and include the wordplay in the end notes just like I'm doing now. Haha! I get to eat my cake and have it, too! **

**Speaking of policies, I want to discuss my omake policy. I revised it a great many chapters ago so I could write an omake whenever I wanted, thus freeing me up to write Sasori and Deidara's backstory. Those two are the only reason I made such a revision. When I said in the first chapter that I had material that wouldn't realistically come up in the story, I was talking about that omake. I haven't thought of anything for Itachi and Kisame, Hidan and Kakuzu's meeting has been discussed, and we already know how Nagato and Yahiko met from canon. **

**That is the reason why, despite that revision, there have been no omakes since. But do not worry! As of last night (I'm writing this on Wednesday, June 3rd), I thought of some more typical omake material. I actually do want to write more, and I have the material to do so, I just haven't had time since I've been finishing chapters on the day I post them for months now. But now I do have time, so this chapter and the next will both have omakes. All material contained in the omakes is officially part of the background for the main story. Think of it as snapshots of the past. **

**Froggy Goes "Ribbit"**

"Hold still! Jeez, I can't take a picture if you're hopping around. You don't need to be _that_ in character."

"But you said you wanted us to look cute!" Yahiko protested. "I look better with my hair visible, and the costume's covering it!"

"It's okay, I'll help." Nagato pulled the bulbous eyes of the frog upward so that there was space, and Yahiko reached in and pulled some of his hair forward.

Jiraiya hopped sideways and took a picture just as Yahiko was doing so, capturing his face wrinkled in a particularly cute way. "Hah! I'm keeping this one," he decided. "There's nothing women like more than a man with cute children..."

"What about me?" Nagato asked. "I'm not cute enough to get a picture?" He made his best impression of a frog's ribbit. It was surprisingly good.

"That's why the two of you need to hurry up and get into position already." Jiraiya crouched in his previous location.

Nagato and Yahiko put on their most adorable faces and waited for the flash. After Jiraiya checked the picture and confirmed that his heart was in danger of melting from the cuteness, Yahiko turned to Nagato and asked, "Wait, don't we have a picture from last year? Wasn't that cute?"

"That's different! It's obviously posed, just like this one is. See, women like _candid_ cuteness the best," Jiraiya explained. "That means not faked for the camera."

"Did you just accuse us of not looking cute when we're not on camera?" Nagato asked. Yahiko burst out laughing. Jiraiya wondered why he bothered with this one.

He ignored the question and sighed, crossing his arms. The subdued way he looked at them next told them he was about to say something serious. "Listen, you two," he counseled. "When you're eleven, time seems to move slowly. When a year passes, it's one-eleventh of your entire lifespan, over 9%. Time passes faster for adults because a year is smaller. When you've lived for 25 years, one year is only 4% of the time you've spent on this planet, and it gets smaller the more years you have. That's why you won't understand what I'm about to say right now. Promise me you'll try to remember it for the future, when you will understand, alright?"

Yahiko and Nagato nodded. Jiraiya smiled at them. Then the subdued expression disappeared from his face. "Aw, I can't believe it's already over! Next year, you'll already be so big you won't fit in these costumes. I'll have to donate them. I can't believe how fast time moves. You're growing up before my very eyes! I'm lucky to have even _one_ picture." He theatrically wiped the corner of his eye.

"It does feel tighter," Yahiko lamented. "Last year I had no trouble fixing my hair. I thought the costume had shrunk or something."

Nagato nodded. Secretly, he was glad they weren't going to be able to wear the frog costumes next year. The tightness was not helping his problem. He wondered if Yahiko had the same problem yet.

"Now, let's get you two equipped. I can't believe I've been so negligent, waiting until 4 days before Halloween," Jiraiya chastised himself. "I was always taught that you should be ready a week before, at the _latest._ Ah, well. I do the best I can."

He popped open the trunk of his car, which was parked some distance away, beyond the yellow light of the park lamp. After rummaging around, once bumping his head on the trunk and uttering some of the words he always told them they shouldn't repeat, he finally returned with a large, relatively shapeless sack, and a plastic pumpkin. "Who wants what?"

"I'll take the sack!" Nagato tried not to sound too eager. It was very important that he have the sack, and equally important that Yahiko not know why.

"You sure? The pumpkin's obviously better..." Yahiko eyed the orange jack o'lantern with desire.

"It goes better with your hair," Nagato told him. "The sack's mostly purple, which is kind of like red, which goes better with my hair."

"Okay!" Yahiko accepted most fashion-based arguments readily. "Yeah! I get the pumpkin!"

Nagato held the sack and breathed a sigh of relief that it covered his entire belly area, and then some. For the past couple months, a certain part of his anatomy had been acting up. Nagato wasn't worried about _that_; he regarded it as a curious phenomenon which sometimes felt nice. Nothing was wrong there. What he was _really_ afraid of was what he'd read in that book that Yahiko had handed him when they were in the library. The book had said that that part of the male body did stuff because of liking someone and thinking they were pretty. If Yahiko saw, he would know that Nagato liked him and thought he was pretty.

Nagato sighed. Something felt wrong. Everything had always been fine; he'd always gotten along with Yahiko completely. But now, ever since it'd started happening, doubt was creeping in. For the first time ever, Nagato was thinking that maybe Yahiko didn't think he was just as pretty. Maybe Yahiko was different. Maybe there was something that they couldn't just talk about and fix. If Yahiko saw and knew Nagato thought he was pretty, he might say that he didn't think the same, and then Nagato would know this horrible thing was true. He held the sack closer. It was better to think that Yahiko thought he was pretty too, or might someday.

Jiraiya grinned at Nagato. "You do know that means you'll be the one carrying all the candy, right? The pumpkin's smaller, so Yahiko'll have to empty it into the sack."

"I know." Nagato would be perfectly happy to carry a heavier bag, if only it meant that Yahiko didn't say that he was different.

.

**A/N: For some reason, I am absolutely convinced that the flashback in the anime where they wore frog costumes happened when they were ten. But I've also made it part of my headcanon that Nagato hit puberty earlier than Yahiko, at 11 somewhere. That's why I wrote this omake so they wore the frog costumes twice. **


	49. Teachers

**A/N: My other story took an unexpected turn into considerations of history and culture, which is where that comes from in this chapter. **

**.**

**Nagato**

As soon as Yahiko was gone, Konan tossed the blankets down onto her lap. "I'd better be decent if I'm going to have so many people talking to me," she muttered.

Nagato opened his mouth to ask her why she said that when she was already decent. Then he remembered how he'd worn the cloak as a form of psychological armor, and closed his mouth. _That explains why she wears it all the time. _It was a mystery solved, although he would have preferred it to be solved in a happier way.

_*ping* _Nagato's phone went off. Hidan had thought to mention his plans for the day on the group chat, asking if anyone wanted anything. "Do you want Hidan to get anything while he's out?" Nagato asked.

Konan considered the question. "Cat treats and a giant feather should do nicely. Nothing else at this time."

_Does interacting with Hidan count as pet therapy? _Nagato wondered as he submitted the request. _Seeing him happy does have this way of lifting one's mood. Does his power really only go one way? _

Nagato saved that as another question he should ask Itachi. "I'm glad," he murmured. "That everything's looking up. It's freeing. Which is good, since I have a lot to get to today."

"Such as?" Konan raised an eyebrow.

Nagato counted off on his fingers. "In the area of things I would like to get to in the near future, I have: going out there in five minutes to make sure Yahiko's alright, finding Itachi and asking him two questions, finding Sasori and telling him everything you just told me about this jutsu, going out to the library and getting books on every kind of supernatural phenomena that might possibly exist around here, and, if I have time, finding myself a training partner. That was a really good idea Deidara had." Nagato restarted the count. "In the area of things somebody should have gotten to earlier but nobody did because we had better things to worry about, there's: finding whichever part of upstairs is beneath that crack in the ceiling and checking if it's leaked, filling that crack in the lobby wall with _something_, getting a freezer, and going back to my apartment."

He folded his hands in his lap and looked down as he thought aloud. "That last could take up the whole day by itself," he muttered. "I don't know what I'll find. All the time we've spent here is just like being in another world. My mind feels like it's in a different mode, like it's stuck in this other world, if that makes sense."

Konan sat next to him softly, so as not to make a sound. "That was my intent," she mused. "Although I never expected it to work this well."

Nagato looked up at her. "Wasn't it Yahiko's idea to stay here?"

Konan nodded. "But it was my idea to bring you here at all. I chose this location because I expected it would be impossible to believe me if you were surrounded by whatever lives you had before. I wished to leave a lasting mark. For that, I needed an isolated place. Not too isolated, or else no one would come, but isolated enough for separation."

Nagato blinked. "Did you learn that kind of tactic when you were learning diplomacy or battle strategy?"

Konan bit her lip. "Neither, or both. I'm not sure. It just seemed natural to me that I would have to destroy the falsehood that already existed. I thought of it as an attack from the beginning." She tilted her head. "Is there any other approach I could have taken? I didn't take much time to consider the possibilities."

Nagato looked around. "Actually, that raises an even better question," he realized. "Why did you want to bring us into the ninja life in the first place? You chose the best possible strategy for submerging us fully in this world and breaking our ties with the one we had before. Why?"

Konan closed her eyes and breathed out through her nose slowly before speaking. "I thought at first that you were the people I had known," she admitted. "I only realized otherwise when I saw Sasori under clear lighting. Original Sasori turned himself into a puppet at the age of 15. When I saw that this version of Sasori was fully grown, I realized he was really different." Her hands tightened at the memory. "I thought you needed memories restored. After that...I no longer had any idea what I was going to do."

_Gods, we've been pressed. Sharing thoughts like this could have been just as effective as that funeral Hidan planned, but there was no time. _Nagato squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on sending his thoughts up to the universe. _Universe, give us some time._

When he opened his eyes, he looked at her with a warm smile. "You know, we never did get to the part of Hidan's plan where we introduced ourselves."

Konan stared at him, comprehension dawning slowly. "We did not."

He held out his hand as if to shake hers. "Hi."

She took it. "Hello."

"I'm Nagato. I spend all my spare time with Yahiko posting inspirational things on social media, supporting various causes, things like that. At this time of year, I would already be drafting a list of happy phrases short enough to write on rocks, which we would leave in the park and on street corners. I have my own place, but I practically live in his. That's the only reason my apartment isn't a mess heap."

Konan shook his hand back. "I'm Konan. I admire origami for its neatness and tidiness. I am not organized, so I like things that are. My favorite weather is rain, because the weight of the clouds is comforting. I used to live in the Village Hidden in the Rain. I was a public figure there, nearly worshipped, and I was heavily involved with administrative duties related to running the village. I suppose when one factors in increased difficulty from not knowing precisely where I am, running a group such as this is an equal task."

"A whole village?" Nagato tried not to stare. "Wow."

"Don't sound so admiring," she ordered. "You were the one in charge. I handled everyday duties and interacted with the public more. That's all."

"Still." Nagato was determined to be proud of her. "But Other Me was the one really in charge of things? Instituting new programs, or...repairs, or…" He didn't actually know what running a village required.

"Making decisions about how we would relate to other villages, overseeing border security, directing shinobi forces. Yes." She turned and inquired, "What is social media?" She didn't actually know what a civilian in this world did.

Nagato chuckled. "You've used the Internet, and you've seen the group chat. Social media is like those two things, combined. The ability to talk with anyone else who has Internet access (billions of people), alone or in a group of any size you want, using images or words or videos, even your own voice. It's more than a little intimidating to think about, but it's okay, because only a few hundred to a few thousand people are likely to be looking in your little corner. We don't actually have to deal with billions of people."

Konan's eyes were glazed over, and had been since he first mentioned billions. Nagato waved at her. "Konan?"

"Several hundred thousand, maybe," she whispered. "Perhaps up to half a million. No more than that in the whole continent."

Now Nagato's eyes glazed over, as he realized she was talking about population. _Only half a million people? That's… When was the last time our world had so few? Was it during medieval times? What kind of society can they possibly have over there? _The general geopolitical landscape of her world could explain so much, he realized. _Wait, she didn't say world. She said continent. _

"What about other continents?"

Konan shook her head. "If there are any people across the ocean, they must be descended from before the time of shinobi. That was a long time ago."

Nagato had _too many _questions. He tried to restrain himself from speaking, and mostly succeeded, although a few garbled sounds escaped. Konan looked at him. "It sounds like another group discussion is in order. Perhaps one more like what we had at the party, and less like a meeting."

Nagato nodded vigorously. _Yes, yes, absolutely! _"W - well, maybe… We should ask." He took deep breaths and thought of how the other Akatsuki members would respond. "Yahiko and I take some interest in how people relate to each other, and Hidan does too. I can't be sure anyone else would be interested."

"I would like to talk to Kakuzu as well, because of his age." She stood up. "Let's not take any more time. You were right; there is entirely too much to do already."

Nagato nodded. "Right. Have to go check on Yahiko."

"I'll want a full report," Konan told him. "I shall go upstairs and look for possible leakage. It's time I familiarized myself with what exactly is up there, anyway."

Nagato nodded and left. _I'm glad she's getting back to normal. _Really_ glad. Half the things I listed are matters of administration. We actually do need her skillset. _He chewed the inside of his cheek. _Yahiko should be really happy to hear that. I hope his talent for getting along with kids works just as well on demonic ones…_

He stepped out onto the back stoop, eyes already scanning from side to side looking for a spot of bright orange. He didn't see any. _Did he go somewhere else? Should I call him? _Nagato lowered his eyes to the ground, hoping to see no sign of trouble. He jumped.

_How did I miss that?! _There was a black-haired boy standing in the middle of the grass, looking up at him. _I didn't see his hair, I didn't have that feeling you get when someone's watching you, nothing. Maybe he's not a normal person. _Nagato had figured, ever since she told them it was possible to detect someone by feeling the chakra in the air, that it was probably the reason why he could tell when someone was watching him. If that was true, then not being able to tell meant this boy did not make noticeable changes in the air's chakra. _If he's like the demon, he might not have chakra. He could be another, different sort of creature. _

This thought brought a smile to Nagato's face. He walked down the steps and crossed the grass, stopping a few feet in front of the boy. "Hello," he greeted.

The boy looked very sad, just as Hidan had described way back when. Nagato knelt down in front of him. "Are you alright?"

The boy tilted his head down and then up, very slightly. Nagato bit his lip. "Okay."

The boy stared at him sadly for a few more seconds, then started fiddling with his toy snake. Nagato bit his lip harder. _How do you engage a mute toddler in conversation? _He was the first to admit he wasn't as natural as Yahiko was about interacting with children, but that probably wasn't the reason why he was having trouble here. _What would Yahiko or Hidan say? _

Nagato sat down cross-legged on the grass and sighed. The boy stopped fiddling with his toy snake and sat down as well, looking up at Nagato. Nagato saw the sad look in his eyes. _It's almost like he understands, and sympathizes. He looks so kind. _Even though he would have rather seen the boy happy, seeing him sad felt strangely good. Nagato supposed he should make the most of this silver lining. "Is there anyone looking out for you?"

The boy nodded again. A smile flickered over Nagato's lips. "That's good." He thought of his parents. Hidan. Yahiko. Konan. "As long as there's someone looking after you, there's a real limit to how bad anything can be."

The boy looked down. Nagato smiled more fondly at him. "Having someone or something looking out for you promises an end to the bad things. If you were alone, you would always have to deal with them yourself, but if you aren't you can go home." _Oh, crap. _"Um...assuming you have one. Do you have one?"

The boy's lips twitched upward, so faintly that Nagato had to strain to see it. He looked to Nagato's side, towards the back wall. Nagato followed his gaze. _If you could pass through the building, you'd get to the front, then onto the street, and I guess he is looking horizontally enough that you could go down the street too. _

Nagato turned back to find that the silent boy had disappeared. He looked around the backyard, his eyes eventually catching on the snake's white clothes as he stood in the shadow of a tree just inside the forest. Nagato could've sworn he had looked over that exact spot several times. _He really isn't a normal kid. _Nagato chuckled to himself, then got up and followed.

"The demon? He's your home?" The snake boy continued to hold the leaf of the plant he was looking at, but nodded. Nagato scratched his head. _He really is alright, then. It sounded like the demon actually does a pretty good job taking care of the ghosts; this kid's probably in safe hands. _Nagato stood aside and let him fiddle with various plants silently. _It makes a kind of sense, too. Birds of a feather. _

The back door opened, and Yahiko came out holding a pair of scissors. He grinned at the sight of Nagato. "Nagato! You won't believe what I've seen. It's amazing! You have to see it!" He scratched his chin with the scissors. "As soon as I find him."

Nagato looked down. The toddler was several feet away, getting to his feet. He ran with a speed and silence that Nagato found unnerving to Yahiko. "There he is!" Yahiko brightened. He gestured for Nagato to follow. "Come on!"

Nagato listened with growing amazement as Yahiko described how the snakelike toddler had done the things he showed Nagato. "I have so much to learn from him," Yahiko concluded as they returned to the patch of well-grown grass and sat around it. "This is _huge._ It's just like everything I would like to be able to do. Make things even more of what they can be." He looked at his hands and sighed. "I don't think my chakra can do all of that, but I'll get as close as I can."

Nagato nudged him in the shoulder. "I'd love to stay here and watch, but I already planned to go to the library and get the books you wanted, on supernatural spirits and things. As long as I'm thinking about it…" He trailed off remorsefully.

"There won't be much to watch," Yahiko reassured. "Just stay for a minute." Yahiko took the scissors and, with whispered apologies to the grass, cut off several inches of a patch of grass no larger than his hand. He then threw the scissors in his lap and put out his hands. Yahiko took a deep breath; in, and out, centering himself. Then he began.

Nagato stared at the chakra (_I had no idea chakra could be visible. Wow!_) for several seconds before tearing his eyes away. His cheeks turned red and hot as he carefully reached into Yahiko's lap for the scissors. Nagato pushed his sleeves back and used the scissors to point at a specific blade of grass. "Can you direct it over here?"

"I can try…" Yahiko squinted as he tried to concentrate his chakra on that spot. He whispered through gritted teeth, "This is really hard," after a few seconds. "Not that one, but I think I'm getting the dozen or so it's sitting in." He stopped the flow of chakra and folded his hands in his lap, panting. "I'm doing really well at keeping the amount of chakra constant, though. It feels like it would be really easy to accidentally use too much or too little if I couldn't control it."

Nagato prodded the grass with the scissors. The cut ends had healed over, he noticed. The patch Yahiko had concentrated on did not look very different from the rest, but Nagato thought its cut ends seemed more rounded, as if it was starting to grow back. "That's a really good starting point," he told Yahiko. "Here." He handed the scissors to the snake. "If it's important to be able to concentrate on a specific area, the grass would be really good to practice on."

"Yeah…" Yahiko looked at him with gratitude shining in his eyes. "Thank you."

Nagato flushed. "It's okay. I'll get you those books." He stood. "Have fun with your new teacher, or helper, or whatever he's doing." _It doesn't feel as weird as I thought it would to call a toddler those things. My standards of weirdness have really changed. _"Good luck."

Above all else, it was the feeling Nagato had from helping Yahiko that he held onto the most. He wasn't sure what to call this feeling. It wasn't quite pride; it was closer to love, but not exactly that either. It was a feeling like he had done exactly what he existed to do, which happened to be helping Yahiko make progress on his own dreams. Nagato decided it must be rightness, just like what Yahiko had felt to be learning medical jutsu in the first place. _Of course it's right. All I've ever wanted is to walk beside Yahiko, help him, be there the whole time to see him get wherever he's going. He's the most interesting thing I've ever seen, and I want to be fascinated by him all of the time, truly see how amazing he can be. Pushing him to become better and better, reveal more of what he is already, is my dream. _Nagato was aware that, as a fully functional person, he had more dreams than just this one. Ideally, he would feel this rightness more often as more of them came true. _I can't wait! _

He was floating along so easily that he almost didn't hear Itachi's quiet conversation with Kisame. Once he did, Nagato stopped in his tracks and listened. Itachi murmured something. Kisame responded in a surprisingly light-hearted manner. Samehada made happy sounds. Nagato relaxed. It sounded like a conversation that was safe to interrupt.

He knocked politely first. Samehada made loud inviting sounds, so Nagato opened the door and poked his head in. "Hi. I just wanted to ask Itachi two questions. One of them's trivial, and the other is an intermediate level of importance. Is this a good time?"

Kisame nodded. "We just finished going over everything important about my stay with the wolf people. It's fine."

"Okay." Nagato entered, closing the door behind him. "My first question is: why do you and Hidan both think of Yahiko and me as being like the sun and moon? Is there a reason for that?"

Itachi replied, "You two are powerful, and moreso together than apart. I thought about this after the first time I saw how much more money people donated when you and Yahiko were there listening to and enjoying my music. His orange hair led me to think of sun and moon deities. They are depicted together the majority of the time, usually married, and they have complementary qualities. That perfectly describes the relationship you two appear to have."

Nagato stopped himself from either flinching at the word "married" or wincing at the phrase "appear to have." _Appearance is reality; he'll never be interested in me that way. I just have to make peace with that. _He nodded instead. "Thank you. It makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. I'll have to ask Hidan later; he probably has different reasons. Speaking of Hidan, have you seen anything strange about his ability to feel what other people feel? He's always fairly cheerful, and he always makes everyone feel more cheerful when they're with him. Is it possible that his power doesn't only work one way?"

Itachi took some time to respond. "That's a very difficult question to answer. He has a natural charisma to him; from what, I cannot tell you. In addition, he has many years of practice helping people to feel better. In even more additions, these first two facts cause people to like him, which mean that of course people will feel better around him, because it feels good to be around friends. There are too many confounding variables."

Nagato shook his head. "No, I don't think so. You already described it, when you said he had that charisma. What is the cause of that? That's what I really mean to ask about."

Itachi shrugged. "I am unable to explain that. He just seems to be very important for some reason. It is difficult to disrespect or ignore him. I can't find anything in his behavior, body language, speech patterns, etc. to explain this."

Kisame folded his arms. "What are you talking about? I had no trouble questioning him when he first had that idea for the training room full of punching bags. It didn't sound so impressive."

Itachi nodded. "I don't mean to imply he's blatantly out of the normal. If he was, he would be far less effective. But in terms of probability, how often is he questioned, and how often would anyone else be? And how much of what he isn't questioned about would be unacceptable from anyone else?"

"Kakuzu was pretty mad after Konan first told us about ninja things, until Hidan started talking," Nagato recalled. "I agree with Itachi. Who else could have inspired even you and Kakuzu to lower your guard and try taking a shot at something out of curiosity?"

Kisame rolled his eyes. "He just hit the right chord, that's all. I was just now talking about how finding out more about myself and where I came from is important to me, and I was really curious about all the strange shit going on that I didn't know anything about. There's nothing mystical about that."

Itachi shrugged. "Time will tell."

Nagato ignored Samehada's chewing on his arm. "Kisame…" he began. "How did you feel when Konan installed the symbol in the basement?"

"Irritated," Kisame growled. "I could feel something when I came back that day. My first thought about it was something like '_This shit?'_ I have no interest in dealing with that thing and would rather it wasn't here."

Nagato said nothing in response to this. Itachi watched him with the Sharingan, looking for the reason he'd asked that question. To his eyes, Nagato appeared to be thinking intensely, but also reluctant. He was not going to tell them why he'd asked. He seemed to be having mixed feelings about his own conclusions, whatever they were. Itachi deactivated the Sharingan and settled in to perform his own thinking.

Nagato looked down at Samehada. "Why are you chewing on my arm?"

Samehada let go and warbled at him. Thinking Person was very smart; Moon Person's chakra did indeed taste a little like how the moonlight tasted. The moonlight was nice to lick sometimes when it lay on the carpet, all soft and comforting. Samehada rumbled as he realized he had never thought to taste the sunlight. He should, and then taste Nice Human to see if Nice Human tasted anything like it! Samehada's tongue lolled out of his mouth happily.

Nagato patted him on the head. "Speaking of which, Konan told me some things about what chakra is and how it works that I hadn't thought of before." He looked at Kisame. "Now that Konan's feeling better, you should ask that guy - Ruta - to come over as soon as he can. It would be so much easier to have everything we know about chakra typed up in one document that we can share in the group chat so everybody doesn't need to repeat the same things over and over as we learn them."

"She's feeling better?" Nagato nodded. "That much?" Nagato nodded again.

"That's part of what I learned. Chakra influences the mind, giving it energy just like it gives the body energy. Lacking chakra was part of why she was feeling so terrible," Nagato explained.

"Interesting." Kisame nodded back. "I'll be sure to tell him."

Nagato turned to leave. _Still a lot to do. Konan's presumably looking into fixing the crack and other preexisting issues, so I still need to get books and check out my apartment. _But before he did so, Nagato remembered something. He turned back to Itachi and Kisame. "Hey.

"Deidara had a good idea." Nagato explained the logic behind partnering up for training. "I guess, since we each get along with everybody else, that such arrangements don't have to be fixed or formalized. We could train with different people for different things. It's a thing to start thinking about."

"That explains why Hidan's plans for the day included buying supplies in preparation for a fight," Itachi murmured. "I sent him a message not too long ago asking what fight he was talking about. A training fight would be interesting to watch." His Sharingan activated on reflex.

Nagato shrugged. "Go ahead. I told Deidara that everyone would want to watch, and he said it was okay as long as everyone kept a safe distance. Anyway, I have to go. I have errands to run in town that will probably take up all the hours." He waved behind himself on his way out the door.

Samehada wrapped his mouth around Kisame's hand and pulled. "Where do you want to go now?" Kisame asked. "The lake? Ruta? Konan?" Samehada shook his head to all of these. Kisame watched his wagging tail thrash back and forth as much as it could. "No wait, let me guess: you just want to have fun outside?" Samehada nodded _Agreement_ several times.

"I'll come," Itachi decided. "Play is good for thinking."

Samehada led the way to the door, which he growled at because it had a knob, which meant it was biased in favor of humans.

**Hidan**

A dead guy fell flat on his back beneath the weight of the demon boy's latest bone ball. Taking inspiration from nature, he'd wedged a bunch of straight bones together and stuck others into this lattice, so it did not feature as many ribcages as previous balls.

The demon boy giggled. Upon impact, the dead guy had released a huge cloud of sparkles so it looked like a fancy impact animation in some video game. Some small sparkles still remained in the air like diamond dust.

"Get me one of those small ones," Hidan ordered. The demon boy handed over a ball composed mainly of hand and foot bones. Hidan wound it up and slung it at a crowd of lady zombies. The demon directed all of the sparkles upward so they could see the full amount of zombies that one ball sent sprawling. "Hey, I think that's a record," Hidan told the demon.

The boy searched his memory. "Yeah!" He shaped his darkness into a piece of paper and a pencil. He wrote the number down and folded it over. "It's an official record, dated and sealed and everything. Wait… I don't have a seal."

"Just make some wax and I'll use my fingernail," Hidan suggested. The boy did so, Hidan stabbed his fingernail into it, and they waited until the wax had cooled and hardened.

The boy nodded. "It is so," he said in a solemn voice. Then paper, pencil, wax and all returned to being darkness, which he reabsorbed. The demon leaped on top of the tallest memorial in the graveyard for a better perch. "I'll beat it! Really easily!"

Hidan tossed him a hand-and-foot ball. "See if you can!" he taunted. "Without cheating!"

"Nya!" said the demon boy. He giggled soon after doing so, and Hidan smirked. The boy assembled the group of zombies again, spun in circles to wind it up the old fashioned way, and launched it.

Hidan counted. "Shit," he muttered. "It's the same."

The demon boy wrapped his arms around Hidan's neck from behind. "Of course!"

Hidan gave him a piggyback ride by walking over to personally inspect the zombies. "They're looking a little dented," he told the boy. When he looked back, the bodies were no longer dented.

Hidan paused for a moment here. "Y'know, I'm glad you're being less of a dick," he told the demonic child. "It works better."

The next second, the demon boy was off his back and lying face down on the ground in a full body sprawling pout. "Gahhh, it's haaard," he whined. "I could do anything I want and everything was still boring. Boring huuuurrts." He sniffled and looked up at Hidan. "Why does doing _anything_ you want make things hurt? It's supposed to be better."

Hidan shook his head. "Power isn't everything. Trust me." A shiver ran up his back. The demon boy whined and activated all of his demon senses at once to take his closest look, but for all of his power, he still could not see where Hidan's memory of saying those two words disappeared to. He banged his head against the grass.

"Hey," Hidan said. He lifted the boy from the ground. "It's okay."

The demon glared up at him. "Maybe it doesn't work because it's still not enough power," he accused. "Maybe if I had more, then it would be everything. I'd be able to control the idea of happiness itself."

Hidan hugged him closer. "But you'd always know you were. It would ruin the fun." His eyes were distant and unfocused. "Fun means being small enough to be surprised," he murmured in the voice of a psychic during a trance. "You would have to have enough power to not be able to understand fun anymore. Be a stranger here. Not belong in this world."

The boy hugged him back. "Aww...So…" He sniffled. "Thanks."

Hidan's phone buzzed. The demon levitated it out of his pocket and checked it. "Your buddies want a giant feather, cat treats, a rubber duck, for you to stop by the auto shop and check the back parking lot, whatever people use to clean concrete, and to know what fight you were talking about," he read to Hidan, who was still unresponsive.

Hidan's eyes had drifted closed. The demon physically pulled one open. Hidan's eyes flushed with pink as he did so. "Aw, shit," he complained. "That means I'd better get moving. Well, fuck, this was fun while it lasted."

"Uh-huh," the demon boy muttered while typing on Hidan's phone. "Sure. Yep. Hey, what do you think sounds better: Epic Battle of Coolness McAwesome, or 'wait and see'?"

"That first one," Hidan said. "Totally fucking better."

"Loud, proud, and obvious! Me likey," the demon boy declared. He rapidly finished typing on Hidan's phone, then handed it back. "Heeheehee."

Hidan fought back the urge to see what he'd done this time. "Yeah, well, see ya kid." He jammed his phone back in his pocket and turned to go.

The boy gasped. Before he could ask, Hidan faced him again and turned female. The boy applauded and marveled at the transformation from several angles afterwards. Hidan bowed. "Thank you, thank you." The boy hugged him. _Huh. Don't remember him being huggy before. Maybe it's part of this "life" he's figuring out how to get. _

Another shiver went up Hidan's back and he winced. The boy pulled back and looked into his face. "Hey! What is it? Hey!"

Hidan shook his head as if he was surrounded by a cloud of flies. "It's nothing. Just…" He cracked one purple eye open to look at the demon. "Just remember what it means. The more power you have, the less you can do."

The demon boy pouted. "Well it's not like I can do anything to change what I am! Unlike _some people_."

Hidan rubbed his head and mumbled, "Just try to do what you can to find happiness, then. It's so fucking hard." He shivered, shaking himself all over. When that was done, he blinked his pink eyes open and spoke clearly with no mumble. "Hey, I don't know what's making you all huggy, but keep it up. That's good shit."

The boy glared at him and kicked some grass spitefully. _What'd I do?_ _Well, it's not my fucking job to put up with his mood swings. I don't have to deal with them. _Hidan yawned. "Che, whatever." And he left the graveyard with absolutely zero regrets.

.

Hidan pulled his cart to the side so he wouldn't block the hardware store's narrow aisle and consulted his phone. "Pet store, somewhere else, auto shop," he murmured. "Might be something to clean concrete with here." _And now to see…_ Hidan looked around, then carefully scrolled down to see what message the demon boy had sent.

It read _Oh, nothing much, just THE EPIC DUEL OF AWESOME COOLNESS that's scheduled for a few hours from now. It'll be great! It'll be even better once the giant fireballs start interrupting things. Hey Crow Boy, if you don't want fireballs, you might consider bringing some of that awesome black stuff as a bribe. It's a very good bribe. Thnx :D_

There were several more messages below that. Hidan didn't read them before issuing a clarification: _Dear everyone, that jerkwad demon kid typed that. Dunno what he means. Probably someone does, so ask around. I do not endorse the asking of bribes, and if said bribe is costly or dangerous to supply, I'm going to have words with that little fucker. Sincerely, Hidan._

He then scrolled up to see the replies. As he read them, Hidan started giggling to himself. _I love these people! They're so fucking cool. They are the best friends. _He wiped a tear of pride from his eye as he read a number of messages calmly speculating what the "black stuff" was and how to provide it, with a subgroup of people making plans for dealing with the promised fireballs. Hidan had never felt such a sense of belonging in his life. _They think like I do, they understand me, and I get them too. Love those bastards. _He sent a second message to the group chat saying as much. It had a crying emoji at the end.

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and took two minutes to compose himself, before venturing out into the wilds of the hardware store. As he passed an aisle for cleaning products, he stopped, unsure whether he should go in. "What'd he mean?" Hidan asked himself. "Something to clean concrete… Is that a cleaning product, or a tool, or what?" He remembered that there was no way Deidara had actual concrete to clean, so whatever he'd asked for was probably not something specific, and anyway it was a bad idea to mess with cleaning products if one didn't absolutely have to. Hidan turned his nose up at the cleaning products aisle and moved on.

He came to an aisle with tools in it, followed directly by an aisle with general supplies that those tools would likely be used on. _Gotta love this place! Best layout ever. _Hidan turned into the general supplies aisle and started browsing.

_Oh. Oh, yes. _He reached up and, carefully, as if it was made of precious metals, carefully lifted from its hook and brought down an incredibly large coil of rope. A rope-like thing, anyway. He checked the tag to see what it was actually made of. _Is that...does it say…'carbon fiber'? _Hidan immediately placed the coiled mass of blue into his cart. He did not bother checking the price on the tag; he knew full well the price was affordable, _the actual number be damned. _The rope was heavy, though. He was going to need a harness. He found a harness across the way in a neighboring aisle. Life was good.

He whistled his way back to the aisle with the tools. The hammers and hoes and rakes and such were of no interest, but Hidan found a scrubby brush that promised to be able to remove all foreign particulates and leave a patio as clean as the day its bricks were laid. It went in the cart. He hummed his way to the front of the store where the contents of his replacement wallet just managed to cover everything (but of course), and sung to himself on his way out. _Dub dah dub, dub dah dah dub, dah DUB de DUB de DUB bom bom bom. _

Hidan selected a feather with just the right combination of stiffness and softness to send shivers down his spine at the pet store, along with his favorite brand of cat treats. Joy of joys, the pet store also contained a number of toys suitable for keeping one's fish company, including a ducky. He also managed to get a "Cute Kitty" discount at the checkout, which was no surprise at all on a day like this.

Hidan had no idea what he was looking for in the auto shop's parking lot, but a badly wounded tricycle probably wasn't supposed to be there. Hidan gasped and stumbled, almost falling to his knees. _Ah! This should hurt. It should. Why doesn't it? Oh fuck this feels so very wrong. _He squeezed his pelvis to reassure himself that it was intact, and hobbled over to the broken toy. "Oh, you poor little *ow* thing," he whispered to it. "You shouldn't be here. You should be with someone who can help. Let's get you there." _Fuck, I seriously hope this isn't going to mess with my driving. _He knew it would. Evidence of his hands be damned, his mental map of his body was very convinced that his pelvis was broken, and that was enough to cripple his ability to walk. The mere thought of sitting made his throat go dry, but it had to be done if he was going to get himself and his injured passenger home.

After carefully buckling the tricycle into the passenger's seat of the truck and double checking that the pile of loot he had to shove into the foot space was high enough to protect it in case the seatbelt failed, Hidan hobbled his way around to the driver's side. His journey back to the hotel was marked by much stopping and starting. _Don't crash this thing Don't crash this thing Don't crash this thing. _He guided the truck somewhere in the hotel's exposed and cracked parking lot and got out, not caring that he had somehow managed to cross three lines. He was in a very bad mood by the time he finished crossing the entire lot and banged on the door to the shed.

Sasori opened the door in no hurry. Hidan glared viciously at him. "Here." He held out the tricycle.

Sasori took it, handling the tricycle very carefully. He observed Hidan's crabby mood. "How do you feel?"

"How do you fucking think?!" Hidan snapped. "My mind thinks my body's broken, but it doesn't hurt, which _ironi-fucking-lly _means it _does_ kind of hurt in a worse way because I expect it to hurt, so now I'm on edge waiting for it to start hurting, and that expectation's giving me trouble walking or sitting so it _might as fucking well_ hurt, not doing me any favors by not." He pouted at the wounded tricycle, but couldn't summon the coldness to glare at it. It was just too pitiful to be angry at.

Sasori gave him a second to calm down. "But it _does _mess with your mind?" he clarified. Hidan nodded angrily. The redhead looked down at the toy in his arms. "Interesting."

Hidan tried to find something to distract himself with. As bad as feeling other people's feelings was, he didn't really mind having his heart messed with. That was nothing compared to the special torment that was having his _mind_ messed with. The hand that wasn't rubbing the side of his head clenched. _I'll save Konan if it's the last thing I ever do. _He also reserved a special hatred for mind-altering things. Nobody he cared for could be allowed to have their head messed with. He didn't like that.

For now, he focused on helping himself. "So…" He shook his head to break some thoughts loose. Finally, one came to him. "Why was that in the parking lot?"

"It's where I work," Sasori explained. "Where else would they end up? I don't have anywhere else I can be found reliably, except for here, and this is too far to reach."

"Well, I'm not going to put up with this," Hidan objected. "Which means you need to, whatever, build like a shed somewhere they can go, and check it after you get out of work or something. Or make someone else your delivery boy. I'm not doing this again." He jabbed a finger into Sasori's shoulder to emphasize his point, and grumbled when the satisfaction he got from the redhead's unexpressive face failed to compensate for the unpleasant feeling in his shoulder. _I'm fucking wasting my time here. _

He turned and stalked away. Upon getting back to the truck, he sat down on the pavement and breathed a sigh of relief. _Ahhh. _The illusion of brokenness was lifted. He laid there on his back flexing his legs and luxuriating for several minutes, until the front door opened and Kakuzu came out to ask Hidan how he'd somehow managed to cross three parking lines with one pickup truck.

"I'm awesome," was Hidan's reply. "And how have you been?"

Kakuzu kicked his arm. "It's not much fun glaring at that thing in the basement just to prove I can, but it's necessary. Get up." Hidan obeyed, rolling to his feet and walking away from the truck in the opposite direction from the shed. He tossed the keys at Kakuzu. The masked man caught them and climbed into the driver's side seat. Hidan hopped into the bed for the fun of it. The ride over the grass was surprisingly smooth. _Me likey. _He was purring when he dismounted and Kakuzu got out.

"Why'd you have to glare for?" he asked Kakuzu.

Kakuzu slammed the car door shut. "I don't like it," he answered. "Strictly speaking, I don't have to glare, but I do consider it necessary to get used to that thing. That means spending time around it, and it just so happens that my face settles into a glare when I do so."

"I don't think glaring helps with teaching yourself to get along with something," Hidan pointed out. "Could you try not glaring?"

"You don't think I have?" Kakuzu crossed his arms. "Of course I have. It's not that easy. The symbol changes everything in every direction. It feels like _everything_, including the air in your own lungs, is wrong somehow, and that wrongness strikes you on every level down to the instincts that keep you alive. It's not as easy as 'Just try not to.'"

Hidan squinted and reached out to touch Kakuzu's arm. He concentrated on the feeling he found there. Kakuzu waited patiently. When Hidan lowered his hand and stepped back, Kakuzu was annoyed to see that the younger man looked confused. "Huh." Hidan shrugged. "It _does_ feel bad and make me want to glare, but it doesn't feel different from other feelings, really. I don't get the...everywhere-ness you said. I mean, I don't _get it_ get it, not that I don't get it from you. Everything's everywhere, isn't it?"

Kakuzu's irritation evaporated as he listened to what Hidan was saying. "No. Not for me." He leaned against the truck and scrutinized Hidan very closely.

Hidan scratched behind one ear. "Maybe it's 'cause of what I am," he speculated. "Maybe this thing I do sends feelings all the way down there when it picks them up. Or maybe I just feel things very much."

"Or maybe," Kakuzu suggested, "it's because those instincts that are too deep to be disobeyed are constantly being activated in you. You can lose your memory at any time, and you don't have any control over it. It's as if you have to."

Hidan stopped scratching. "So I could have whatever I feel up here, and there's also a constant disturbance and shit down there, so everything I do has some activity down there?"

"Probably." Kakuzu sighed. "When you don't lose your memory completely, or just before you do, you act like your life is in danger. What are you so afraid of?" He searched Hidan's face for a reaction.

He got one. Hidan whimpered, the sound rising from his throat so quickly and so piteously that he didn't realize he had made it until after it was a fading memory. He scratched harder. "I dunno. I don't... " He glanced at Kakuzu warily. "Just don't. I don't want to."

Kakuzu unfolded his arms. "Of course. Of course," he repeated in his most soothing tone of voice. "You don't need to do that. You're going to thin out the hair on that side."

Hidan stilled his hand and ran it through his hair in fear of that possibility. He found no unusual quantities of loose strands and relaxed. "Nah, it's fine. Don't threaten me like that, asshole! Almost made me freak out."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "Of all the possible threats, you freak out the most over threats to your glorious mane. Of course you do. Should've seen that coming ever since I saw you with those lions."

"I'm more like a tiger, except smaller. Maybe more like a mountain lion," Hidan theorized. "Yeah! I can totally picture myself as a mountain lion. _That._"

Kakuzu waved for Hidan to follow him around to the passenger side. "What's all this junk in here for?"

.

**A/N: This is the first time I've made a reference and had an omake to clarify that reference on the _same chapter_. Nice. **

**I did not name the whole chapter after the following omake. While I _am_ very proud of its awesome title, all the following title did is supply the word for me to think of and use when I had to choose a chapter name, which is actually 90% of the process of naming a chapter, so never mind. **

**I did not in any way do this as a kid. Nope. Certainly not. I had not yet settled on cats at that age, so I looked up to dinosaurs and hoofed things and polar bears, not lions. That's obviously completely different.**

**The Best Teachers Are The Ones You Choose Yourself**

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. From his living room, he could hear that British guy announcing the start of a hunting scene. Who knew what that could foretell. Kakuzu had yet to see any consequences he cared about, but it was only a matter of time. There were reasons he didn't deal with kids.

He would have liked to go out there and make certain no consequences would happen, but the sausage and bacon he was cooking had him trapped in the kitchen for now. They were almost done; he only had to watch them for a couple minutes. That meant he had a couple minutes during which _anything_ could happen. Kakuzu glared at the sizzling meat and steeled himself for the sound of something valuable crashing to the floor.

Hidan crouched low on the ground in front of the television. Slowly, with his eyes narrowed in singleminded concentration, he edged himself forward soundlessly, his paws adjusting themselves so as not to provoke a single squeak from the wood floor. His heart beat with anticipation, but his attention did not waver. On the screen, a lioness edged forward with the same patience, seeking the right opportunity to break cover and race for the kill. Hidan breathed deeply, filling his nose and mouth with the scent of books and dusty knicknacks as he scanned the herd. He spied an antelope that seemed _right_, somehow. He could not have explained why. It was at the edge of the herd, but not alone. It had no obvious weakness. It looked around, its ears twitching, just as alertly as every other. Yet the sight of it appealed to him. He broke cover prematurely by taking a loud inhale of air as the narrator confirmed that the lioness was zeroing in on the same antelope. Hidan tightened his paws until they cramped to stop himself from breaking his cover in celebration. He had never selected the right target before the lions did before! But he shoved that aside. There was still much he needed to learn about the predatory arts.

He fought to keep his attention from wavering. That was what he was learning the most: patience. His imaginary tail flicked, but Kakuzu's house did not have any tall grass to rustle, so that was alright. Hidan leaned forward on his toes. He breathed as the lioness breathed, crouched as she crouched, and now he felt almost as if he was in her place. He could _feel_ the bright sunlight on his fur, hear the dry crackle of the tall grass, and smell the scent of antelope. His haunches rose as he prepared to leap. His breathing was deep and silent. It would soon be time to leap. The prey took a step. In another few seconds- in the next moment- _NOW!_

"Hey!" yelled Kakuzu as he slammed the plate down on the ground, before getting out of the way. Hidan leaped towards the scent of meat to his right, instead of at the television. He came down with his front paws first, scratching the floor just beyond the plate. He knew it was a perfect grab - if he'd been leaping for prey, his nails would have dug into flesh. His hind legs came down next, his toes pressing into the floor as if to dig themselves in as well. Growls came from behind him as the lions pursued their struggling prey. Hidan sank his teeth into a sausage and shook it from side to side, tearing through it and scattering pieces of sausage across the floor. He finished off the whole plate in this way, only stopping to retrieve the pieces when the plate was empty and the hunt on the television was over.

Kakuzu praised himself for his quick thinking. It wasn't easy housing an apex predator in a regular human home.

Hidan turned in circles, sniffing out more pieces he might have missed. Satisfied that he'd gotten all of them, he sat back and panted. It was a good kill.

Kakuzu knew better than to turn off the documentary. He removed the plate while Hidan was recovering, and came back to find the boy once more crouched in front of the television. Without making any sudden movements, he edged his way over to sit next to Hidan. "Learn anything useful?" he asked.

Hidan headbutted his arm. "I chose the prey before they did this time!" He purred. "And I didn't move a muscle before it was time. I _knew_ when it was time! I breathed too loudly when he said I'd gotten the right prey, though." Hidan looked up at Kakuzu with a wide grin. "I can practice being stealthy anywhere, but I'm getting the timing, and that's the best part!"

Kakuzu patted him on the head. "You can practice being patient any time, too. Specifically, any time you're in my house." He looked at the screen and wondered what Hidan saw in large cats that prompted him to imitate them. "You'd better be graceful enough not to knock anything over either."

Hidan growled. "I've never knocked anything over!" Kakuzu raised a hand to point out the mishappen pile of books in the corner. "Anything that wasn't just a book!"

"I intend to keep it that way." Kakuzu shot him a sideways look, before turning back to the screen. "What do you see in these things?"

Hidan bristled, and protested that the lions weren't _things,_ they were people! He nuzzled the screen, where two lionesses were grooming each other over the shared meat. Hidan softly purred and brushed his face against Kakuzu's shoulder, copying the way the lioness on the right brushed over the back of the other one's neck. Hidan took his hands off the floor and rolled over onto his side playfully batting at Kakuzu's legs, just moments before 2 cubs went tumbling in the same way as they played. Kakuzu reached out. Hidan took his hand gently in his mouth. He inadvertently bit down a little too hard, but loosened his grip at a stern glare from Kakuzu. Hidan continued to chew at Kakuzu's hand softly before raising his hands to bat at Kakuzu's arm in harmless little swats.

The male lion came onscreen, letting out a loud roar before settling down to eat. Hidan immediately released Kakuzu and rolled over, getting to his paws again to watch. The same two cubs tumbled into the male lion's side, beginning a light scuffle next to his belly. Hidan purred tolerantly and nudged the carpet with his hand. The male lion looked over his two charges stoically as they took turns pouncing on his and each others' tails.

When the documentary was over, Hidan let out a loud yawn. "Noon, better rest," he explained. Kakuzu saw him out the back door and watched Hidan disappear into the woods. When the boy had been out of his sight for ten full seconds, he turned back. He went to the little shelf of DVDs next to the television and began to pull out the documentaries, placing them in piles on the coffee table to the left of the TV where today's documentary lay. Kakuzu emptied the shelf and immediately put that one back on it. He turned to look at the others. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at their near-identical covers. He had not watched most of them, the one they'd just finished being the sole exception. He was going to have to at least fast-forward through all of them.

It was very important to make sure Hidan had positive role models.


	50. How To Be A Ninja

**A/N: Aw yes! I've already got most of the chapter after next finished! The last time I was this ahead, I probably had fewer than 20 chapters. Ahhh.  
**

**Things are just _way awesome_ today. Yeah! Coolness!**

**Yes, there are some not-so-subtle jabs at the setup Konoha used for the 3rd round of the Chunin Exams in the following chapter.**

**I have no idea why I'm calling Hidan's thing a harness. It's just the word that I use when I think of it, and it comes naturally and easily and I can't even imagine using any other word. I think it's just one of those things that are part of how I think the world should be when I have no knowledge of how it actually is, like before I learned anything about cars, and I thought the gas pedal was under the left foot and the brakes were on the right because it was just _obvious_ that left is go and right is stop. (I still can't believe they're the wrong way around _twice_) Although, I'm not sure if Hidan's thing actually exists in this world, so it might not have any other name. **

**Everything after Deidara was written in one huge hours-long burst. My left hand hurt a lot when it was done. I love it when that happens!**

**.**

**General**

"What's all this junk in here for?" Kakuzu asked.

Hidan stared. And then he stared some more. And then, he pulled out his phone and showed Kakuzu the group chat.

"A fight?" Kakuzu's eyebrows raised at that.

"Fuck yeah, it's gonna be _the shit_, and hey wait a sec." Hidan took his phone back and looked through all of the messages in the chat. "Fuck! 'Scuse me." He started hitting buttons at a furious pace.

"Dei didn't say anything about it," he mumbled while he was typing. "So now...I'm asking permission...and if I get it, I'm inviting everyone to watch."

Kakuzu stayed silent. Hidan looked up at him. "Hey asshole. I know you have ears. I'm not spelling shit out."

"Yes, I'll come. Did you need that spelled out?" Kakuzu teased. Hidan knew it was a tease from long years of experience, and from the humorous feeling he had.

He smirked. "Just checking." Deidara replied to say Yes, people could watch. He didn't say anything more; but he probably was busy. "Shit, shit, shit," Hidan mumbled as he went back to the group chat and invited everyone to the fight, which he also gave more details about. "Sorry, Kakuzu. There's time pressure today. I'm busy."

Kakuzu sighed and crossed his arms. "Time pressure. How nice." He leaned back against the truck and relaxed his shoulders. "Well, it was nice while it lasted."

"Ah, there you are," came Konan's voice. She came up to the two of them, looking blank and business-oriented. Kakuzu stared at her. She stared back, tilting her head and looking at him quizzically. "Is something wrong?"

Kakuzu continued to stare. _How long has it been? _He could remember his 80th birthday better than he could remember this same look on Konan's face a week ago. It looked foreign to his eyes, which were expecting a more angry look, or perhaps distracted, or perhaps broken. The current blankness on her face indicated neither how much she was thinking nor what she was thinking about. _I have no idea how I feel about that. _Kakuzu remembered being impressed with her getting down to business on her second day, but that had been before he knew what her blankness covered. He was no longer sure at all whether covering _that _was a good thing. How long would it be before another eruption, another reveal of uncomfortable truths? If episodic explosions of bad news were an option, Kakuzu would kiss shoes in order to make the alternative happen, whatever that alternative was. Even if the alternative was a steady wallow in muck for the next several months as her issues leaked out slowly, Kakuzu would support that above drowning.

"It's been a while," he replied. In case she didn't understand, he gestured at his own face.

Konan blinked, and smiled. "It should hold for the next couple of months, barring further disaster." She gestured towards the front of the building. "At any rate, there is a crack in the wall of the lobby that needs fixing. I know little about construction in this world, so we should determine if it is possible to direct Stonemaker Jutsu in such a precise way."

Hidan rummaged through the passenger seat, coming up with his arms full of rope, brush, harness, and duck. "Sounds good. I got deliveries to make. Where's Dei?"

Konan produced four butterflies and sent them all in different directions. "Deidara is flying up the street," she told him. "Kisame is in the back yard, as is Samehada, Itachi, Yahiko, and a small child." Her eyebrows showed a small amount of confusion at the last.

"Yep," Hidan nodded. "Snake kid's nice. If you got time, you should see him. He's cool." He stepped aside. "Cat treats and feather, in there. Go nuts."

She and Kakuzu watched him head in the direction of the street, delivering Deidara's brush. Kakuzu looked at her sideways. "I thought the feather and treats were for _him_."

"They were." Konan looked toward the passenger seat. "Does he genuinely think I would enjoy them myself?" Her tone was thoughtful, not disbelieving. _She's actually considering it. _

Kakuzu shrugged. "You can find out what he thinks later. A crack in the wall sounds more important."

"Yes." She closed the car door. "Let's practice in the forest first."

.

Hidan carried his substantial burden several offices up the street, where he found Deidara circling around a tree, ducking through its branches at speed. "Oy!" he yelled.

The blonde immediately made his owl stop in place and looked around. "Oh, thank goodness, yeah!" he grinned as he spotted Hidan. He took the owl down from the branches. "You like this spot?"

Hidan looked around. He was standing on the front lawn of some doctor's private practice - a small, houselike building with only one story and a flat roof. The large oak Deidara had just been flying through took up half of the front lawn with its wide roots. Across the street was another houselike building, this one of two stories and with a triangular roof. It also had a tree on its lawn, a large evergreen whose lower branches could do a decent job of hiding a human-sized figure as they blew in the wind. Seeing them blowing reminded Hidan that even under his cloak, he was getting chilled. He could feel the goosebumps on his arms. _Wonder what the weather's like back there? Maybe Other Me lived somewhere warmer, _Hidan reasoned.

"Oh yeah," he agreed. "Look at this shit - different kinds of things to hide behind, different houses and trees to use for cover or launch yourself off of, the trees even face each other like they were meant for us. It would be even better if we used the houses. You wanna use the houses?" He gestured to the other building's second story windows.

Deidara looked at his hand. "I'll be making them small, and they're supposed to move on their own, and I don't want to use them so much for hurting people, yeah… Sending them into a building or something would be really good, yeah! I didn't even think of using them to find people, but yes! Totally!"

"All fucking right!" Hidan shifted the rope, harness and duck to his right arm and high-fived the blond. "Can you even imagine what kind of places our originals trained or fought in? I can! I'm imagining a whole miniature town, maybe half-forest, with like towers and shit…"

"And other things, yeah," Deidara continued. "Probably sand, and rocks, and a deep pool of water somewhere. Gotta have everything."

Hidan sighed. "And we have to make do with what we can scrounge up, which is flat ground with two trees on it." He shrugged. "At least they're good trees and different kinds of buildings."

"Yeah…" Deidara stared off into space wistfully. "I wonder what flying in mountains would be like? You think he had mountains?"

"Depends where they lived," Hidan murmured. "I should ask where this group was based and shit. But, wait, she did say our originals started a war somewhere, so that means they traveled! He probably flew through all kinds of mountains while traveling."

"Heh, yeah." Dei tried to focus on this silver lining, instead of the "started a war" part. "They probably didn't have airplanes, hm. Why would my birds be so awesome if they did?"

"You should ask about villages, too," Hidan recalled. "She told me stuff about herself and my original, and mentioned that everybody lived in villages. Other Sasori used puppets, when we all know there's way better shit in this world. And no planes. Sounds like an old-style sorta world."

"Remember when we went to the bar, and she rode with Kisame and Itachi?" Deidara asked. "She looked so..._interested_ in that. Don't know how else to explain it."

Hidan nodded. "Yeah, I got the feeling it was new to her. I was all giddy. Speaking of which…" He nodded downwards. "I got ropes to figure out how to attach. That'll take me a while."

Deidara held up the brush. "And I've got a bird to wash, hm. See ya."

.

Hidan walked into the backyard. He saw Samehada being an excellent distraction for Yahiko all the way to the left, Itachi balancing a rock on his head in front of him, and Kisame leaning against a tree watching the shark and occasionally glancing at Itachi. Hidan walked over to Kisame, depositing his burdens at the base of a nearby tree.

Itachi took the rock off his head and came over. Hidan snorted. "What'd you have that on your head for?"

"Play," was Itachi's answer. "It helps with thinking, and thinking is what I need to do in order to find out what Nagato meant and decide on a training partner."

Hidan glanced down at the rock. "It's got a good shape, I guess, but why not try stacking three? Balancing one is just a meditation exercise. Stack three and play a grass whistle, pretend you're a one-man circus."

Itachi pretended to write in midair. "Note to self: consult Hidan before attempting to play, as he is very wise in the ways of entertainment."

"And we're not," Kisame explained. "Same pulled us out here, then saw what was going on and went over to hang out with them. So now we have to make things up for ourselves, which we're not skilled at."

"Seriously?" Hidan looked between the two of them with pity. "You guys couldn't even think of swordfighting with sticks?"

"I'm not interested in imaginative play," Itachi defended. "I like to play _with_ the imagination, not with real things _using_ my imagination."

"If you can find anything to swordfight with, let me know," Kisame said. "She said I did that. It might be familiar."

Hidan went quiet. Itachi activated the Sharingan to take a closer look. _I can't see anything. Why can't I see anything? _Hidan's face was a black hole, as blank to Itachi's Sharingan as Konan's face was to casual observation. Itachi kept his Sharingan activated. This was a very interesting phenomenon.

Eventually Hidan stopped tapping a finger against his chin and looked up at Kisame. "Deidara had this idea of training with other people," he started. "So, for you, probably Kakuzu. I mean, d'obviously. Maybe Yahiko, for the water stuff. I dunno about swords. Do any of those animal guys know about swords?"

He looked at Itachi. "You have kinda the same figure as Nagato, and she said he needed to look out for himself better. It's perfect!"

"She did say that," Itachi remembered. "In addition, Nagato was discussing possible applications of my chakra-based techniques when you told us about how you used water. I was already thinking of assisting someone by combining illusions and water jutsu."

"Shit." Hidan pictured that. It was glorious. "Get that idea to Sunshine ASAP. He already learned about spreading his chakra through water to make it work better."

"He's busy." Itachi stepped aside, offering Hidan a clear view of Yahiko watching the toddler pet Samehada fearlessly, while Samehada licked the boy's cheek as softly as possible. He could only look from one to the other and giggle at the adorableness, being far too distracted for anything else.

Hidan was also quite distracted at this sight. "Aww." He elbowed Kisame. "Isn't that the cutest thing ever? A kid and a shark. It doesn't get cuter than that. 'Specially not when the shark's Sammy. Hey Sammy!" he called.

Samehada heard him and raced back in time to leap into Hidan's waiting arms. Hidan allowed himself to be bowled over by the shark's weight, laughing the whole time. "Shit, I'm sorry," he apologized while halfheartedly fending off Samehada's tongue. "I've been too busy to hang out for a while. Forgive me?"

Samehada nodded and licked Hidan's face, or tried to. Hidan blocked it with his arm. Too late, he remembered that this was his injured arm, from when he'd sliced it open at the party. Konan was right; he _did_ heal much faster than normal, but that didn't mean it was ready to withstand an enthusiastic licking from a shark's rough tongue. _I should not have sliced that deeply. _Hidan took a deep, shaky breath of air. The pain flooded up his spine and down, awakening every part of him. _Every_ part. _Whoally shit. I like it. _He was already purring.

Samehada realized his mistake and squealed, getting off Hidan in a hurry. Kisame and Itachi looked down to see if he was alright. "Are you okay?" Kisame asked. He looked down at Hidan's arm. It was very red, but not bleeding. That was a relief.

Itachi still had his Sharingan on as he observed Hidan's suddenly deep breathing and glazed eyes. He looked away. "He seems fine." Itachi deactivated his Sharingan, to no avail. The mental image was not leaving his head. _I should be careful what I look at. _

Hidan tried to get himself back under control. "Yeah, I'm good." He was also struggling to get a mental image out of his head. This image was one of Konan looking very vicious. Hidan shook his head and pressed his legs together, bending over them as he sat up. "It's fine. My arm's fine. Hey, Sammy?"

The shark asked, "Rar?"

Hidan giggled. "Turn around. That's what I called ya for."

Samehada did so and made a low, smooth, soft chirr as he saw the ducky perched on top of the pile of rope. He rushed up and, with lots of gentle maneuvering and much use of chakra, got the ducky to sit on the tip of his snout where he could hold it up and make soft soothing noises at it.

As predicted, this sight distracted Kisame and Itachi from anything Hidan might have been doing. Itachi looked at his friend. "Is this what you meant?"

Kisame nodded. "Yeah." He pulled Itachi aside so they wouldn't be interrupting Samehada with their conversation. "That's what he was doing in the bathtub, and he was also singing to it. I've never seen him do that before." Kisame looked shaken. Itachi reactivated his Sharingan and saw that his friend was hiding several different kinds of unhappiness.

"Kisame, what's wrong?" he asked.

The shark man closed his eyes and sighed. "I've never seen him do that before," he repeated. "It looks just like…" he trailed off, and growled in frustration. "I just have to ask, what else does he like or want that I can't provide? Do I know what to do for him?"

Hidan's breathing was returning to normal, many thanks to Samehada's decidedly not-vicious feelings. He heard Kisame's question. "Hey, Fishface," he called as he came over to join them. "Happiness doesn't fucking work like that."

Kisame stared back, puzzled. Hidan explained, "I mean, it doesn't for him. Yes, you totally should find out more about what he wants, 'cause some of it might not be just fun and games." _I feel parental instincts at work here. Those sure as shit aren't going away. _"But you don't have to feel all guilty and shit. He's not paying attention to how happy he is and comparing it to how happy he could be, like other people do. He doesn't fret so much about what he's not doing. You can relax."

Kisame did relax, but scowled. He glanced back at Samehada. "It doesn't matter. Even if he doesn't feel deprived, I don't want to deprive him. He's unique. I don't want to let down my only shark-friend. I want to treat him well."

Hidan punched him lightly in the shoulder. "You do, dumbass."

Kisame took another look at Samehada holding the ducky up as if to show it things before he turned back. "Even so."

Something occurred to Itachi. He desperately tried to ignore it. _No. I am not thinking about my best friend in that way. None of my business. _At least it was just an idea, which was easier to dismiss. Itachi turned to Hidan's materials instead, taking solace in their lack of secrets. "What will you do with these?"

Hidan brightened and walked through Itachi and Kisame to start rummaging in the pile. He held up the harness and the coil of rope. "Konan said a while ago that I could throw my scythe. For that, I need a rope. To hold _that_, I need this thing."

He put down the rope and stretched out the harness to take a closer look at it. "Hmm, let's see…" He held the useful part of the harness against his right hip and tried fiddling with the straps one-handed.

Kisame huffed and held the useful part for him, freeing Hidan to work with both hands. After several failed attempts to put the rest of it together, which Itachi observed with his Sharingan, Itachi stepped in to show Hidan how he thought the straps were meant to go. Hidan secured the last buckle triumphantly. "All fuckin' right!" He turned to the rope.

"Speaking of your scythe, it was strange to see you without it," Itachi said.

Hidan winced. It _was _strange, but just barely ignorable to be without it. Being reminded of the missing weight on his back, the lack of a tail, the absence of blades brushing against his shoulder, made Hidan feel itchy and deprived. "That's why I'd rather ride in the bed than drive," he complained. "The truck's too small. I can't take it with me at all because the truck's narrow enough that it would take up too much space, and its handle doesn't bend. Who the fuck made it unable to bend?!" He threw down the rope he was holding. "Whoever designed that shit can go fuck themselves." He stormed off into the building to get his scythe, looking nearly on the verge of tears.

Itachi and Kisame stared after him. "It must be very meaningful to him," Itachi concluded.

"She did list his scythe in the same way as she listed Samehada for me," Kisame remembered. "It might not be alive, but it is unique, just like Same. I get it."

"Hey, guys," Yahiko called from across the lawn. "You want to come and see?"

They did. Itachi and Kisame joined Yahiko and the toddler around the circle of grass, forming a circle of four. Kisame looked down at the toddler. "I didn't want to scare you earlier. Um...hello."

The boy stared up at him, not looking intimidated in the slightest. That was a relief. His snakelike eyes glittered in the sunlight. Kisame swallowed his questions. _Why are you half snake? Is it the same way as I'm half shark, or another way? How do you get along with other snakes? _The boy's eyes looked remote and lonely. Kisame wondered about his own eyes, about his own blue skin and gill marks. What did he look like? He tore his eyes away from the snake's smooth white skin. _He can't talk to me, but then neither can Same. But, I don't want to scare him. _Kisame cleared his throat and asked Yahiko what he'd been doing here and what happened to the grass.

They listened to the whole story with growing amazement. Kisame was unable to restrain himself from looking at the child again as Yahiko described his powers, but found to his pleasure that the boy was looking back. The boy held out his stuffed snake. Kisame wondered how much the kid could tell of his feelings as he petted it. The boy looked like he understood, but Kisame hadn't said anything. _Does he have similar powers to Hidan's as well? _

Samehada rustled his way directly through the grass to Kisame's lap halfway through, joining the party. He made himself comfortable and listened attentively to the last part where Yahiko described what he'd managed to accomplish. The pressure in Kisame's gut from seeing the snake boy and wondering about him eased. Samehada was here, and he was a land shark just like Kisame. Having him here made everything better. Kisame thrust away his inner critic and tried to honestly consider how lonely he was. _I definitely sound like I need company. No, I'm not going to consider that weakness, because I just don't have time. So what can I do as a solution? Stay and talk to the snake kid? Go back to the Hatakes and get Ruta like Nagato asked? Hug Samehada? _All of those sounded like good options.

Yahiko finished with, "And after Nagato left, I looked closely. It seems like the grass where I direct my chakra grows back a little more than the rest. I'd love to try this with water." He was breathing harder than he should, though. "So how are you guys doing?"

Itachi said, "We've been helping Hidan prepare for his fight."

Yahiko blinked. "What fight? Prepare how? What's that belt thing for, and why did he run off?"

Itachi explained everything they'd heard, including Nagato's ideas both that day and the day where he had spoken with Itachi in the basement. Hidan came out with the scythe on his back where it belonged just after Itachi began, but showed no interest in their gathering. He went straight to the pile of rope and started figuring out how to tie it around the scythe's handle. So Itachi went on, watching Yahiko's eyes widen and the orange-haired man nod vigorously as he heard the answer Itachi had given Nagato.

"That explains it!" he said when Itachi paused to let him interrupt. "I saw Sammy licking at the sunlight when you came out, and then he came over to chew on my arm. How was it? Do I taste like actual sunlight?"

Samehada shook his head no and whined sadly. Yahiko smiled at him. "Does Nagato taste like moonlight?" Samehada nodded yes, flopping up and down excitedly. "Huh. What causes that?"

Kisame let Itachi come up with an answer to that question. He was far too busy watching the snake kid instead. The toddler seemed distracted by Hidan's efforts across the grass. Kisame cautiously touched the boy very briefly on the shoulder with one finger. "I'll remember whatever they come up with, if you want to hear it," he offered.

A small smile appeared on the boy's face, causing Kisame to grin as well. The toddler ran off to help Hidan with the rope. Kisame wondered why he wanted to help Hidan instead of stay around everyone else, then dismissed that question for now. He had a promise to keep.

Itachi was wondering if it had anything to do with Nagato's eyes. "If we're right and his unique powers really do come from his eyes, then his eyes could be the key. They are both incredibly powerful, just like one might expect from a celestial deity, _and_ connected to his chakra. That could be the link."

Yahiko scratched his chin. "Celestial deities? So, we're going fully animistic here?" He looked back at the child briefly. "I mean, I did want to get books on nature spirits, but nature gods as well?"

Kisame cleared his throat. "A-hem." When he had their attention, he pointed down at the grass, behind himself into the woods, and at where the snake boy was helping Hidan. "Presenting Exhibits A, B, and C."

"We don't know what that is," Yahiko protested.

"Precisely." Itachi reminded him, "The only beings we have met in this world with strange powers not based in chakra were demons. It's not unrealistic to expect religious overtones to some of the beings around here."

"Who knows what kind of vampires we have, too," Kisame added under his breath.

Yahiko shrugged and crossed his arms defiantly. "Well, what I see so far is a little kid who needs company. I'm not going to treat him any differently than that unless I have a reason to."

"Of course. Children are children. But Kisame does have a valid point; we can't dismiss anything as unlikely."

Yahiko held up one finger. "Rule One of being a ninja, apparently: You're not allowed to disbelieve anything."

Itachi held up two fingers. "Rule Two: Morality is flexible. You need to make up your own mind as to what you believe."

Kisame tried to think of a third. "Rule Three: Definitions are flexible, too. You have to decide for yourself what you are, all the way down to the _species_ level."

They nodded in agreement. A vote was held, during which they agreed unanimously to accept these three rules as core tenets of what it was to be a ninja. "We can always add others," Itachi suggested. "And there may be other things which deserve mention but are not so fundamental."

Samehada rumbled and looked around. What about him?

Yahiko laughed and leaned forward to pat Samehada on the nose. "It's okay, Sammy. You're here, you're one of us, you use chakra. You count as a ninja under Rule Three. A shark ninja." He giggled. "Konan told us there were talking toads back in her world that people learned really awesome techniques from, so there definitely are animal ninjas."

"_Shit._" They both turned to look at Kisame. He was surprised by the sudden attention. "Sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud." He sighed and turned to Yahiko. "I met this one guy in the clan of people who are half-animal who is really, really open-minded and likes to categorize things. I invited him over at any time he wants to help us figure things out. Talking animals and plant growing powers? Sounds like I need to drag him over here _yesterday_."

"Did you get the number of anyone over there?' Itachi asked.

"No, and I damn well should have." Kisame facepalmed at his own stupidity.

"Oh, well." Itachi looked over at Hidan and the toddler. They were making rapid progress at getting the entire coil of rope wrapped around the harness. "Maybe later. He's almost ready."

.

The three (and Samehada, who was very proud to be a ninja) agreed to formalize and publish their list of Rules on the group chat, before dispersing and heading up the street for the fight. Hidan realized a loose rope would be seriously annoying to work around, so he had to take his cloak off, wind the rope through his sleeve, and retie it around the scythe handle. His opinion of his original rose in the process. _Even if he was a murderous bastard with seriously limited abilities, he had to be one dedicated murderous bastard with seriously limited abilities. That's probably how he got away with seriously limited abilities for so long. _Hidan practiced throwing his scythe a few times, and jumped up and down afterwards cheering enough for the both of them. The snake boy smiled. Hidan offered him a lift to the site of the battle, which the boy accepted.

Konan met with Itachi. "Itachi. I was finally told about the demon's demand, and I believe I know what he was referring to. Your Mangekyo Sharingan can not only release Tsukiyomi, but also Amaterasu, which is extremely hot black fire." She gave him a giant branch to use. Kisame held it over his head in the middle of an otherwise empty yard, and Itachi set the very top of it on fire. From Kisame's wincing, he could tell it was very hot indeed.

Kisame didn't have to put up with the heat for long, as the branch was pulled out of his hands and hovered in midair a few seconds after lighting. "Thanks!" the boy called, before reaching out and pulling the fire off the branch. Itachi, Kisame, Konan, Yahiko, Hidan and the snake boy all stared as the demon pooled the black fire together as if it was liquid, before consuming some of it. His eyes lit up and he did the Tobi dance. "Hyaaaaa good stuff!" He proceeded to do more cheering and dancing. None of the adults present could be sure if he had eaten or drank the fire, or if his reaction to it resembled really good food or something illegal.

The snake toddler ran up to him and took his hand, guiding the demon back to the seat Hidan had shown him. The demon took his ball of fire with him, wrapping it in darkness first. Itachi guessed the darkness must have heat shield properties to it, as the building they sat on did not spontaneously burst into flames.

Kisame's face was still raw and painful to move, which prompted Yahiko to suggest they accumulate water before the fight. He locked eyes with the snake boy and grinned. If anyone was hurt, this would be his first chance to try healing them. If not, Kisame's face was in need of relief.

The demon, snake, and Yahiko took seats on the roof of a building a couple houses down from the yard Deidara was in. Itachi and Kisame fetched a large cooking bowl and filled it with water, and stayed nearby for healing. Kisame rubbed his face and marveled at how much better it felt from the other side of the street, a couple houses down from the yard with the evergreen tree that Hidan was starting from. Konan perched on a disused telephone pole a house and a half up from the yard Hidan was in, wanting to keep her paper as far from the demon's fire as possible. Across from her, two houses up from Deidara's yard, sat Sasori. Kakuzu leaned against the base of the pole.

Hidan and Deidara compared their supplies. "Nice!" Deidara was very admiring of the harness and rope. "Carbon fiber? Shit, that can't be blown up easily."

"I have no idea whether it can or can't, but at least it won't cut easily and it has to be stronger against _some_ things," Hidan partially agreed. "Did Konan hook you up with that bag?"

"Yeah, when we trained that one time, hm!" Deidara patted a small pouch at his side. "She said it wouldn't hold very much, but it has to be good enough for one fight, yeah."

They took time to admire the cleanliness of Deidara's clay bird, too. "And scrubbing at it did nothing?"

"Nope! As far as I can tell it's like concrete, yeah. I was right - it holds up even under water and scrubbing, hm."

Nagato and Yahiko's car pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. Nagato hopped out without bothering to drive it all the way to the parking place and raced up the street. He joined Yahiko next to the demon and the snake. "Sorry! I did get a lot of books, but I might have to go back."

"I can't read instantly," Yahiko reassured him. "Look at what Hidan got!"

Nagato's enjoyment of the setup was tainted by the color of the rope, but he kept those concerns to himself. _It's a really deep blue. A lot like the color in his eyes that time… _He waited to shiver until Yahiko's head was turned. Nagato followed his example and waved at the boys. The demon pointed to the black fireball, which was now hovering right next to Nagato's other side. He flinched at a controlled outburst of flame. The demon boy giggled mischievously.

"All right!" Deidara yelled, as he stepped from a branch of the oak tree onto his waiting steed.

"Fuck yeah!" Hidan ducked behind the evergreen.

For several seconds, silence reigned. Then Deidara dipped a hand into his pouch of clay and threw a spider in a wide overhead arc, blasting it as it fell behind the opposite side of the evergreen tree.

Before the blast, Hidan zipped out from behind the tree, raced across the street, and threw his scythe at Deidara from the side. Deidara dodged, but by a smaller margin than he meant to. _Crap that thing nearly got me! _His owl had nearly gotten the scythe embedded in its wing. Dei went pale and took his bird higher.

Hidan smirked and raced for the oak. Leaping from branch to branch, he reached the top in no time and threw it again. Deidara treated the scythe as if it had a 3-foot danger radius around it, but still came too close for his comfort. He upgraded the imaginary radius to 6 feet and decided to try and keep himself on the other side of the field from Hidan's scythe at all times.

Hidan's scythe hit the roof of the opposite building. He grabbed the rope and pulled it free, grimacing at the amount of damage that caused to the roof. _This is a recipe for collateral damage. Everybody had better stay back. _They intended to. All but the demon had taken their spots out of consideration for Deidara's blasts, but the same distance proved just as good at keeping them the hell away from Hidan's scythe.

Deidara looped around the evergreen, giving Hidan another good shot at him. This time Deidara made like a falcon and dived, watching the scythe sail harmlessly overhead. _Damn, I can't do this every time he throws it, yeah. I can't dodge in such a small space. I need a shield. _He skimmed along the ground, pulling up in time to avoid the oak's trunk. His earlier practice at weaving through its branches came in real handy. He churned out a bunch of really small spiders and threw them through the crowd of upper level branches between him and Hidan before stopping his ascent and escaping the tree.

Hidan leaped sideways to escape the spiders, and only then thought about where and how he would land. There was nowhere to land but the ground. He impulsively threw his scythe out again, this time keeping a firm grip on its rope and using it to adjust his balance as he fell. The swing this caused nearly took Deidara's head off. _Fuck this, yeah! Let's see what his 'precious' can take! _Deidara made a full-sized spider and circled around, waiting for the scythe to return to a predictable course.

Hidan landed and pulled his scythe to him. Deidara threw a spider with all of his strength, blowing it up to full size as it reached the red blades. It grabbed the blades and detonated.

_Fuck! _Hidan leaped up onto the roof of the 2 story house, pulling the scythe up and out of the ground. _Now he knows to deflect it. I'm gonna have to surprise him. _Hidan ran down the side of the house and ducked into an upper window, closing it behind him.

Deidara grinned, even as his mind raced. He felt better than he could remember ever feeling. When was the last time he'd been so _alive?_ His mind was clicking away at a very pleasant speed indeed. _If I use one spider to deflect, with the amount of clay I have, I can deflect maybe 7-10 times, and that's if I don't use any for my own attacks. I need to end this quickly, hm. _He threw 6 mini spiders at a lower window that was broken. They blew up to a size where they could just barely perch in someone's hand and climbed in. Deidara grimaced at the speed they crawled at. _I need some other shapes, yeah. Clay flies or something would be way better. _

The front door of the 2 story house flew open as Hidan ran out, followed by the blue rope he held in his trailing arm. He stopped and spun, pulling his scythe out the door behind him. Impaled on the end of it was one of Dei's spiders. Hidan's spin took the scythe up in a wide arc, flinging it and its explosive cargo directly at Deidara. The blonde turned deathly pale. Hidan remembered to flick his wrist, making the scythe jerk wildly. Even so, Deidara barely had time to overcome his freeze reflex before the scythe flew past him on a wide miss. He blasted the spider, throwing the scythe away from him and giving himself time to recover and stop shaking.

Hidan suppressed a cry of frustration. _Fuck! I can't aim for shit yet! _He pulled on the rope wildly, trying to get it back on a controllable course, but its flight was out of his hands. He managed to bring the scythe back towards him, causing it to slice off several upper branches of the evergreen tree and embed itself almost to the hilt in the yard. A last-minute dodge was the only reason Hidan's leg wasn't added to the pile of chopped off limbs. _Forget aiming, I can barely even handle it! _

_Creeper! _screamed his memory of watching Let's Play Minecraft videos with Itachi. That hissing sound triggered reflexes he didn't know he had. Hidan leaped as high as he could and yanked on the rope. The scythe resisted, but eventually pulled free and lazily crossed the grass to smack against the spiders that had crept up behind Hidan while he was busy dodging his own weapon. Thanks to the grass caught in the blades, his scythe acted as a fan, sweeping the spiders away and not impaling any of them. Hidan gritted his teeth, rolled away from the explosion as one of them detonated, and thanked his lucky stars that none of them had been caught in the blades.

_How many did he send? _He'd been moving too fast to tell. He'd caught one on his blades, another had just exploded, and there were two standing where he'd swept them away. There could be a lot more infesting the house, getting ready to catch him even now. But first, he had to run for it as a rain of small ones descended on him from above, leaving his scythe behind. Hidan shed his cloak, which might hold small ones, and dove through a locked window into the doctor's office.

Hidan winced as the glass forced a cry of pain from him and the smell of blood filled the air, but there was no time for dealing with that. He had to get his scythe back. Weapon, shield, counterweight. Hidan realized it served all those functions and without it, he was hosed. He tried to pull on the rope, but the glass in his arm made this too painful. He threw his right arm out to balance himself as he ran for the side of the building. That one was still useable, but Hidan doubted its utility. He used it to wrench glass pieces out of his left shoulder as he ran, and to open the window he climbed out of.

At this point, he officially could not retrieve his scythe by its rope. Hidan had been happy to purchase a coil of rope long enough to wrap around a house and then some, and he would have dropped to his knees in a prayer of gratitude for it now. The rope could still be used for balance, but Hidan would have to retrieve his weapon the old fashioned way. He estimated that if he didn't have to wind through a house again, the remaining length of rope would be more than enough to serve him for battle. He let it unwind behind him as he crept behind some bushes next to the private practice and listened.

The rope rustled the bushes, though Hidan wasn't moving it. _Shit! He's got the scythe! _Hidan tried not to yell curses as he struggled to keep his mind in order. He needed a new strategy, but the red mist settling over his eyes was not going to allow him one. _How dare he touch my tail. __**How dare he. It's mine. MINE! **_

Hidan grabbed the rope and flooded it with his chakra. Ordinary rope, woven of dead and broken fibers, would not have carried his chakra. This rope and its unbroken fibers did. He forgot his senses and screamed rage into the sky, even as his hearing faded. His vision faded too. The missing part of each was replaced with a new vision and a new hearing, as he sensed flight vibrations running through himself and saw talons gripping him. Hidan wasted no time thinking of how this was possible. His imaginary tail was no longer imaginary. It was real, staggeringly heavy, and channeled chakra from Hidan's spine. He spun his tail, and saw himself flip up and dig red blades into the bird's white belly.

It penetrated hilt deep and then some, slicing effortlessly through concrete clay. Hidan distantly heard Deidara yell, and felt the talons let go. He tried to get to his feet, and realized he couldn't. His legs were leaden. Hidan concentrated on pulling himself back to his body. _Come back. Come back! All I want is my tail back. I don't need to tear the bird to shreds. Its falling is enough. _He regained enough of his senses to experience sudden disorientation. He didn't bother taking a few seconds to get over the disorientation, instead immediately racing out towards his scythe, the missing part of himself.

He veered left, then right, tripped over something, and got back up and started running again. The something exploded, throwing him into the air. His feet hurt a lot. Hidan pushed himself back up and raced forward, his whole world having narrowed to only one thing. The clay bird was crashed only a few feet in front of him, the handle of the scythe sticking out of its belly and a few inches of blade poking through its back. Hidan felt his legs and balance become more steady as he neared his weapon and returned to himself. When he grabbed its handle, his chakra came back to him in a burst of warmth and love.

He pulled it out the same way it had gone in, leaving Deidara's bird with a slice through its middle. He cared not at all. All that mattered was being whole again. With his scythe in his hand, Hidan felt he could defeat anyone. _My weapon, my shield, my tail. _He turned to see where the blonde had gone.

After all this, after having glass in his arm and losing much of his rope and being knocked off his feet by a point-blank explosive, it was a hiccup that stopped Hidan. It was a pitiful sounding hiccup, filled with shock and fear. Hidan heard this shock and fear, and realized he felt it too. A numb horror spread through him. His arms dropped to his sides. His scythe was left scraping the asphalt. Hidan's vision was briefly replaced by something else. _What _else, he could not say, but it was definitely something other than what his eyes were actually seeing.

What his eyes were actually seeing, he learned a few seconds later, was Deidara sitting beneath the evergreen tree and shaking. The blonde was pale and wide-eyed, staring at the exact spot where Hidan had been thrown into the air by one of his explosives. _My - my friend...he liked to tell me about his girlfriend over campfires… _Hidan had to shake his head to once again get past the something else that had replaced his vision. Deidara whimpered. _Oh god. I - Hidan - oh god. _He looked down at the spider he was petting for comfort and cringed.

Hidan shook his head. _Why can't I fucking see? What is it about him and Konan that means I can't see? _He picked up his scythe and laid it on his lap as he sat on the bird's wing, holding his head and trying to see.

"Dei? Dei! Hey, moron, are you okay?" Deidara blinked. _Sasori? _He forced his eyes open, looked at the grass right in front of him.

The grass was fine. He was uninjured. "Y-yeah, I, I - I didn't mean to, it was on accident."

"I know." Sasori bent down into his field of vision. "It's fine. Hidan's fine. Nobody is injured. Not badly, I mean."

"What?!" _That can't be true. The scythe, it buried itself like hilt-deep! _"No way! The scythe -" He looked around for his bird. "It was almost about to rip him in half, hm!"

"Your bird is not ripped in half," Sasori reassured. "He has a hole in him, but he's clay. He'll live."

Deidara swallowed. _Why am I shaking so much? I need to get to him. _"G-give me a moment, yeah. My body's freaking out. I don't know why." His arms were shaking badly enough that he resorted to clamping them around his lap spider in a tight hug. It helped.

Hidan's vision problems had cleared up, but he still sat on the bird's wing feeling awful and jittery. _Oh shit. What the fuck did I do? _He remembered his vision splitting like taffy, screaming in rage, not being able to think. He'd sent his chakra through his scythe, and it had cut through Deidara's concrete clay like it was butter clay. _Did I hurt Deidara? All I wanted was my scythe back. _He hugged its blades against his chest and looked around. He saw Sasori with Deidara, who appeared to be unharmed. _Shit. Shit. _His heart was still beating too fast and he still felt jittery. Hidan petted the blades of his scythe for comfort.

There was a huge _Whump_ as Kisame hit the ground. "Here." He shoved Yahiko forward. "I smell blood here."

Yahiko swayed, regained his balance, and started to check Hidan over. "Hidan? Are you okay? Where are you injured?"

"Got glass in my shoulders from the window, my feet and legs from the blast, might've hit my head in the blast too," Hidan recited. "I don't feel like woozy or have trouble with lights or anything."

Itachi brought the bowl of water, using his chakra to hold it steady so he could run. "Here." He placed it on the ground in front of Hidan.

"Pull him forward," Yahiko asked. Kisame did so. Yahiko winced at the glass. "Okay, I'll soothe it first, then try to get the glass out." He did so.

Hidan exhaled in deep gusts as each large piece of glass was pulled out. "I'm a masochist, so don't worry about physical pain," he told Yahiko. "Feels kind of like sweetness." It flowed down his nerves like amber honey. The smaller shards of glass only enlivened the immediate area, making Hidan's shoulders twitch. The smell of blood made his mouth water. He tried not to moan.

Nagato shook off that news. He'd think about it later. Right now, he checked out Hidan's feet. "Burned, but healable," he summarized. "Need to get his shoes off. I'd be surprised if something isn't broken from the force of the blast." Konan handed him a kunai. Nagato took it gratefully.

"Hey!" The demon and the snake were perched on the bird, overlooking Hidan. "Someone say broken bones? I can reorganize bodies if they've gotten out of place."

Yahiko finished pulling the glass he could see and began applying healing chakra through the water. "We'll check if anything is out of place. Thank you."

"You help now?" was what Hidan wanted to know.

"Yeah. He likes me to." The demon indicated his snake-eyed friend.

Nagato finished cutting Hidan's shoes off. They were torn and melted from the blast, useful only as garbage. "Could you…?" he asked. The snake boy nodded and hopped down. His small, delicate hands were much better at searching for broken bones than an adult's overly pushy fingers would have been.

Konan went to see to Deidara. She didn't honestly have any clue what she could do for him. They were alike in having seen war, but even that could only go so far. In a single moment of actual experience, one was always alone. She could only share sympathies with him later, when the feelings of the moment had worn off. She supposed she was really just checking to see if that had happened yet or not.

"Good," she praised Deidara for his hugging of his little lap spider. "That helps. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay; it's my body that's freaking out, hm," he answered.

_Not strictly true, but it's the most useful way to be thinking right now. _"Take deep breaths to calm it down," she instructed. To Sasori, she ordered, "Apply pressure." She placed one hand on Deidara's arm and another on his shoulder and pressed down firmly but gently. Sasori copied her on Deidara's other side.

The feeling of being held made Deidara's breath speed up. He took deep breaths instead, slowing it down by force, and his body relaxed. "Hey… Yeah, hm. Thanks."

"Any medical needs?" Konan asked. Like everyone else, she hadn't been close enough to determine if Deidara's leap from his bird had been just before or just after Hidan's scythe cut through its back.

Deidara said he didn't feel anything. Sasori used his grip to gently push the blond to one side. "I don't see any blood," he confirmed.

"Excellent." She returned to see how Yahiko was doing in his new role as battlefield medic.

To her only mild surprise, he was doing very well for his first time ever acting in such a capacity. He was fully concentrating on healing Hidan's feet, despite sweating and deep breathing indicating that he was already getting low on chakra. Itachi tried telling him to let the snake boy take over, but Yahiko insisted he couldn't because everyone was wearing clothes. Nobody knew what he meant by that, but Itachi dropped the subject.

He sat back, panting. When the soothing wore off, Hidan's feet and lower legs would be very red, but for now the inflammation was gone as if they had never been burned. Hidan was flexing his left arm. "It works!" he announced triumphantly.

"Nice job," Nagato murmured. The recovery he was seeing on Hidan's lower legs was astounding next to what he'd seen Yahiko do for plants. He wondered if healing plant versus animal wounds was very different. Yahiko chuckled and attributed the effect to his using water this time. Samehada whined, unable to do anything to help anyone. Konan placed a hand on his head and told him everything was fine and everyone was safe and not hurt very badly. Samehada was reassured enough to lick at the bowl of blood soaked water.

Kisame bent down to talk with Konan as the shark was doing so. "Is this normal?" he asked.

"Is what normal?"

He gestured around. "We're all...organized. No panic. Nobody's freaking out. It's like we've done this before a hundred times."

Konan nodded. "You may not have, but your nerves have done this far more than a hundred times. I'm not surprised."

Kisame stared at his hand. "Yeah…" he said slowly. _My instincts didn't work before, but they work here. _This _is the situation they were meant for. _"Huh." _How do I feel about that? _

Yahiko sat back on the grass and relaxed. "Wow," he said.

"Fuck yeah," Hidan agreed. He got to his feet, wincing a little. "Yeah, I'm not going to enjoy walking back home. Hey, Moonlight, your engine still warm?"

Nagato nodded and left to get the car. Hidan clutched his scythe closer, still petting its blades. "You guys had better have enough room for me and my precious," he told Yahiko, "because I'm not letting go. If Dei hadn't kidnapped it, I wouldn't have freaked out and this wouldn't have happened."

Konan stood by him. "That is good to know," she said. "Separating you from your scythe is the most effective battle strategy, so now you know to prepare yourself for that possibility, and we have some warning of what response we should expect."

"He's okay, right?" Hidan looked over at Deidara. "I got that same feeling from him that I do from you sometimes, where I can't see."

Konan looked at him sideways, then entwined her hand with his. "He's fine." Hidan noticed she said nothing about herself.

.

**A/N: No omake on this chapter. The next chapter begins right where this one left off, so an omake would just ruin the flow. **


	51. How To Be A Ninja Part 2

**A/N: Immediately after posting this chapter, I will be posting a new chapter in my other story, In Search Of Demons. Said chapter is important. I recommend reading it. Not on any particular time frame; it's just important in general. It will be Chapter 13. Be sure to read the chapters before that if you do because by god, I managed to give that thing a _plot_.  
**

**Aside from that, awesomeness! I'm having fun over here, what with writing so far ahead that this chapter reads like a reminder that I need to take notes about. Writing is fun! **

**Disclaimer: I am not any kind of therapist. I have no knowledge of how to comfort someone who is freaking out from traumatic flashbacks. I _have_ read about the use of pressure to comfort people suffering from anxiety and/or sensory overload in general, which is why Konan and Sasori used that to help Deidara last chapter, but this should not be taken as actual advice for a real life situation because different people find different things comforting. Just assume Deidara's a particular sort of person who would react positively to a hug in times of crisis, and remember real life people might not be. I did not put this disclaimer at the end of last chapter because I didn't think to. Reasons. **

**.**

**Hidan**

_Something's not right here. _

He unclasped his hand from Konan's. "I, uh, I'm gonna wait sitting down." He flopped backwards, letting his legs slip out from under him. It was terribly painful, but better than flexing his ankles would have been. Hidan's breath froze, and for several seconds he could not expand or contract his chest. His eyes burned with tears.

He stared down at his lower legs. _Crap._ Standing did some bad things. He guessed that something might have slipped out of position, or perhaps some muscle or tendon had been strained but not broken until it had to take the weight of his whole body standing._ Fuck! I need to be able to move as soon as I can. Shit! _

He propped himself up on both arms as he shivered. The scythe stayed where it was, where it should be: its blades centered directly over his heart. Hidan concentrated on holding it close without using his arms as he waited for the shivers to go away. _Ouchie. Hungry. I'm hungry. Why am I hungry? _He was _starving._

Before he could inform Konan of this fact, Hidan felt a warm, heavy, soothing hand on top of his head. He closed his eyes and nudged upwards, purring as he did so._ Kakuzu._ "Hey," he interrupted his purring to say, "where were ya?"

"I'm no medic," Kakuzu replied. "There was no space around you anyway. Now there is, so what's wrong?"

"M' ankles," Hidan mumbled. "Don't like being blasted and stood on."

Kakuzu groaned and looked back over his shoulder with a glare. The demon disappeared from the back of the bird. Kakuzu turned back to face Hidan, and was not surprised to see the boy already on Hidan's other side. "Why did you stand so quickly, then?" he growled to Hidan.

Konan kneeled next to Kakuzu, near Hidan's knees. "He was concerned for Deidara." She gently rolled Hidan's left ankle toward her, stopping when she heard him gasp. "Deidara is fine. Physically he is unharmed, and mentally he is recovering quickly."

The demon bent down to look at Hidan's ankles more closely. "Alright, what do we got here?" He looked at one ankle, then the other. "Oh, yeah. Broken things. Got a couple bones in bad places." He placed a hand over Hidan's ankle and sent darkness into his body, pushing and pulling Hidan's tissues into place so that the broken bones were properly aligned. More tears dripped from Hidan's eyes.

Then the demon boy started to giggle. "Heeheeheehee." He kept giggling, louder and louder until he was laughing. Everybody from Samehada to Sasori turned towards this sound. Hidan felt 9 pits of dread open in his stomach. _That's not good._

The snake child silently joined him at Hidan's side. Yahiko swallowed. "Uh...what does that mean?"

The demon boy turned to grin at him very directly, his eyes flashing open at a speed that made Yahiko flinch. "You know," he teased.

Yahiko swallowed again. "I do?"

The demon boy's eyes shaped themselves into happy little curves. "Yep. Didja know that it's the opposite? Chakra goes with animals better than plants, but his stuff goes with plants better than animals. It's gonna take a lot more than before to heal ankles." The demon pointed a thumb backwards at his snakelike companion, who already had a hand on each of Hidan's ankles.

Yahiko turned away. "Okay, okay. I know what's he's talking about. The snake kid's powers make dead things rot, which includes clothes, so don't watch. Somebody get a blanket ready."

Everyone obligingly turned away. Several, including Kakuzu, also closed their eyes. He did so after joining everyone else who was near the bird in putting several yards of distance between them and Hidan. They waited at the side of the road for it to be done. Konan also left Hidan's side, walking several meters away to ask Deidara and Sasori if either of them had a coat to spare. Sasori shrugged off his jacket and handed it to her.

The snakelike child closed his eyes and opened a door deep inside himself. His skin and hair began to glow, barely visible at first, then more intensely, until he could have lit a dark room by himself. Hidan's ankles began to pop, and his pants discolored and began to sag. Seam after seam split as dirt returned to dirt. Hidan winced, because the snake's powers did not come with free pain relief, but he did not let this distract him from fingering the dirt his pants were turning into. _Huh. It's all crumbly, like wood when a log's half-rotten so some of it's wood and some of it's dirt. Some of this is fiber, and the rest is dirt. I gotta get pants with more polyester in them. _

His arm shook, spilling the dirt onto the asphalt, which was popping like wood in a fireplace. The demon boy threw back his head and laughed, his voice accompanied by a background of shattering, splitting, twisting road as ominous as any thunder. Hidan threw himself to the side before a long-dormant seed could blossom somewhere he would rather it not blossom, throwing a hand up as he did so to avoid faceplanting into the thick, woody stem of a sapling. His legs slipped when he tried to use them to stand as they failed to gain traction on the heaving mounds of gravel he was trying to stand on. The growing forest life around him roared like a chainsaw. Hidan found himself whispering words he didn't know underneath his breath. He knew growth meant destruction, but it was quite a surprise to learn it sounded like destruction too. Curses, startled exclamations, and defensive snarls surrounded him.

Then, it ended. The roar died down, and with it the curses and exclamations, leaving the former road silent. Saplings still small enough to be killed by hungry deer stood silently in the cool air of early spring, surrounded by an abundance of flowers, grasses, and random sprigs of who-knows-what that had lain in this patch of dirt since before it was paved. Hidan tried not to move, lest he cut his arms and legs on the jagged edges of uprooted chunks of asphalt. It was as if someone had floated through a young forest, trailing a bucket of chewed pavement behind them. Hidan looked up at the sapling he had avoided. Its small branches carried pieces of pavement 4 feet into the air.

Konan lowered her kunai. There was no need to cut away unruly plant growth. The bird had crashed in the street and Hidan had not been able to walk far from it, meaning that the serpent's power had radiated outwards from almost the exact center of the road. For all the destruction it had caused, its radius was very limited. Only small semicircular patches of grassy lawn on either side had been affected. She glanced up and down the street and estimated the radius to be about 3 meters, or 9 feet, as they thought of it in this world.

Kakuzu hardened his skin and brushed away the broken pavement. He did the same for Yahiko and the others, helping them to stand. Konan kept her kunai out, but found no need to use it on her way to Hidan. The rustling as he knocked over stems and grasses to make safe places to put his hands was enough of a clue to locate him. She sidestepped around the young tree and handed him Sasori's jacket.

He blinked at it, confused. Then a breeze blew, and although the wild growth made an excellent windbreak, it was enough to remind Hidan that he had no clothes on. _Awww…_ He groused. Aside from the coldness of the air, it was actually nice not to have any clothes on. He threw the jacket across his lap anyway and rubbed his goosebump-covered arms.

Gravel sprayed and made a great noise as Nagato tried to get the car closer. He abandoned this effort soon enough and got out. He pushed his way through the grass and told Hidan, "I hope his powers helped you as much as they helped everything else, because you'll need to walk."

Hidan lifted one leg off the ground and rotated the ankle. "It's fine." This movement exposed him to more cold air, though. He rubbed his arms again. "My th-thing. Get it?"

Nagato pointed down at the scythe, which was still pressed against Hidan's heart. "You ran the rope through it, remember?" He bent down to help Hidan untie the rope from the scythe's handle, carefully averting his eyes from Sasori's jacket as he did so. He ended up having to help Konan untie the rope, because Hidan could not reach the end of the handle from that angle. Hidan yelled frustration at the sky, for reasons Nagato did not know.

The redhead took the rope and followed it through the yard where Hidan had abandoned his cloak and into the house. Hidan pushed back Sasori's jacket and wound the rope back onto the harness as it slackened, still muttering curses under his breath. Konan reached out and brushed some of his hair back behind his ear, which stopped him. "What's wrong?" she asked gently.

Hidan leaned into her hand. "It's a fucking design flaw that it doesn't bend like a real tail." He sighed.

Konan glanced at the scythe. "You just used your weapon for several different purposes I did not imagine it could be used for. There's no reason to think you can't modify its handle as well."

Kakuzu returned. "So that's how that thing stays on your back," he remarked.

"Huh?" Hidan remembered Kakuzu making a remark like this before. "You're talking about my thing?" He petted the blades with one hand.

Kakuzu nodded. "I've been wondering how you keep it on your back for a while now. You don't have anything to hold it on you with."

Konan shrugged. "It's not difficult to hold something in place with chakra."

"I don't though," Hidan corrected her. "It's _mine._ I don't have to use chakra. It just belongs to me."

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "The same way it turned and attacked Deidara's bird on its own to get back to you?" Hidan nodded, but said nothing more. He remembered the sudden fear of loss all too well. _Konan should've warned me it would be taken during a fight. That was a mean trick. _He wasn't about to accuse anyone of unfairness, but something could be perfectly fair and still be mean. He sniffled.

Nagato returned, having followed the rope's path through the window, past the bushes, and to the bird. "He - here." He looked well away as Hidan finished rewinding the rope and pulled the jacket back into place. Konan carefully retied the rope onto the end of the scythe as Hidan got one last burst of shivering out of his system. _So amazing and warm…_ He fell in love with his cloak all over again.

"Uh-oh." They all heard Yahiko say this. As one, Nagato, Konan and Hidan got up and went to him, Hidan hugging the jacket to cover what his cloak didn't.

Yahiko was scratching his head and staring at Deidara's bird. "What do we do here?" he asked the demon. The white-haired boy rubbed his hands together and laughed maliciously. The black-haired toddler said nothing. They both sat on top of the clay bird, which was tilted up just far enough to make out the plants that had grown into the hole in its middle. One of said plants was clearly a tree.

Hidan pushed people aside and gave Yahiko the jacket to hold. "I got this," he declared, before slicing at the overgrown and woody plant life. His scythe resisted, as it had resisted cutting through the lawn. Hidan channeled chakra into his scythe and tried again, meeting no resistance this time. The bushes and saplings parted like butter, as did Deidara's clay when he used the longest blade to perform very delicate surgery to extract the sapling's branches. "There!" he announced triumphantly, holding out his hand for the jacket. "I haven't actually dug any clay out of it; it's just a hole. If it could be sewn back together or something, this thing'll be good to fly another day."

"Can you _please_ get to the car?" Nagato asked._ So you can get some pants on_, Hidan heard. He smirked and did as requested, sliding into the back seat with his scythe. _Man do I like flustering cute guys. _

Once back at the hotel, Hidan was seated sideways in the chair in the sunroom so Yahiko could check for more glass. No more was found. Nagato fetched a pair of pants from Hidan's room, and he was given time to change. After this, he asked to see Konan and Yahiko.

Hidan rolled his pants up to check his ankle and lower leg. "So I'm good?"

Yahiko nodded. "I don't actually know anything about doctoring, so I don't know why I'm here, but it looks like he finished the job, yeah."

Hidan brightened. "Awesome! Does this mean I can spend tonight at the bar?" He looked at Konan eagerly.

She stared at him. "Why would you want to go to the bar?"

Hidan turned a little red and wondered why _had_ he invited Yahiko to stay. "Well… I liked having the glass out, and my arm scratched, so… Kinda got some stuff to work out."

Konan blinked and stepped back. "Of course." She could relate to that feeling.

Yahiko sighed. "I'm going to have to leave all the rocks to Nagato this year. Cram session, here I come."

Hidan explained what cramming was to Konan. She nodded. "Ahem." Without turning in his direction or even looking at him, she called Yahiko's attention.

"Yeah?" Yahiko remembered that he had planned to train with her, to show her that he was strong and could defend himself. He winced and once more mourned the loss of all the sleep his future might have held.

Konan closed her eyes. "I will assist Nagato with painting rocks."

They both stared at her. Yahiko's jaw worked up and down. "You...he told you?" That was a genius idea! If she wanted to be one of them, of course they should include her in their typical activities. Yahiko wondered why he hadn't thought of it, and realized he had, but in reverse. What he was trying to do could be described as including himself and Nagato in _her_ typical activities. This brought a smile to his lips, and his eyes lit up. "Thank you!"

Hidan wondered how soon was too soon for Bar Time. _Having him pick out the glass sure didn't hurt. I am so fucking glad those two decided to stay._ He traced the edges of Yahiko's cloak with his eyes and tried not to drool or groan. The edges of his vision flickered, reminding Hidan that he was hungry. The boy's energy had helped that feeling, but he promised himself that he would get something to eat before stopping at the bar anyway.

Konan waited a few seconds for the look in Yahiko's eyes to dissipate before she opened hers. "You are welcome."

Hidan petted his scythe. "If you guys wanna talk, maybe you could do that not here? I need to get to the bar or get a nap, not sure which." He leaned down to trace his lips along the top blade of his scythe, chewing softly as if nipping at his own tail. Konan patted him on the head and left. Yahiko followed.

**Sasori**

Meanwhile, in Deidara's room, Nagato added Yahiko-bear to Deidara's growing collection of comfort animals. Said collection now included Hobbes, Yahiko-bear, a giant teddy bear that now shared the pillow, and the hand-sized spider Deidara had refused to let go of.

Sasori sighed. "What are you going to do with the other two?"

Deidara relaxed on his bed next to the giant teddy bear, comfortably opening his arms to accept Yahiko-bear into them. "I don't know. I don't think they left the office, yeah. Someone should go check if they're still moving. I _think_ I'm too far for them to be active, yeah." He hugged all of his animals closer and bit his lip.

"Even if you aren't, you're not sending them to attack anything," Nagato reassured. "They won't blast themselves." As proof, he held out his hands. "Can I hold this one?"

Deidara loosened his arms and allowed the miniature giant spider to crawl out into Nagato's hands. Nagato stared at it in surprise for a minute or two. "Woah. I didn't expect it to be this cute."

Deidara laughed. Sasori's fists clenched, pulling on the bed's blankets. He said nothing and turned away. _Is that a real laugh, or is his real reaction just delayed? Is he really okay, or just pushing through?_ Sasori gritted his teeth. _If he was broken, I could try to help. If not, all would be well. But a person isn't a machine. Nobody can tell if they're broken or not, not even them. It's like tossing something into the ocean, knowing that you'll never know if it dissolves or if it stays intact, and if it stays intact it could wash ashore at any time. You have to watch out all the time, possibly for the rest of your life._ He **hated** that uncertainty, that messiness. _So what do I do? I'm not willing to watch out forever. _

Deidara punched him in the shoulder. "Hey, you alright? You're more quiet than usual, yeah."

Sasori forced his fists to relax. "I'm worried about you. That's all."

Deidara pushed himself upright. "Hey. Look at me." Sasori did so. Deidara certainly looked alright. His smile seemed natural. His breath didn't hitch as he handed Yahiko-bear to Sasori. "I'm fine, yeah. That was…"

Deidara waved his hands in the air. "It was great! I don't know how else to put it. I felt...alive. When I was in the middle of everything, thinking as fast as I could, dodging and deflecting and everything, it felt right, yeah. After the spider caught Hidan…" Dei swallowed. "I felt horrible, yeah. But then everyone was there, and - Do you know what I remember, yeah?"

Sasori shook his head.

"The part I remember is the confusion, yeah. A little kid that didn't know what they saw, or a buddy acting like he had no idea there was anything wrong with his leg that was blown off, or… Those kinds of things, yeah. The what happened being wrong and not fitting, so bad you couldn't even talk or think about it." Deidara sighed at his lack of words. "I don't know what I'm trying to describe, yeah. But I know I didn't see it here. Everyone was there, and nobody was freaking out, or wondering what was going on, or pretending nothing had happened, or anything. It was all like normal, like something that was fine, everyone was dealing with it, like it was something everyday, yeah. It didn't seem so terrible or wrong, because everyone could handle it."

He looked Sasori in the eyes. "You don't know what it's like, to be handling that kind of thing. I've never seen that, yeah. To acknowledge he was blown up, and talk about it, and not be scared or confused - I didn't know anyone could _do_ that. I didn't know it could be fine." Deidara took back his spider from Nagato. "That's why I want to fight like that again."

Sasori's jaw dropped. "Even if - even if someone or something gets blasted?"

Deidara hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. It was kind of beautiful, and the timing was great, and it turned out that I didn't really ruin anything for anyone after all."

Nagato chuckled. "Yeah. I sat far away expecting explosions to be dangerous, but the most dangerous person there was actually the _doctor_, using his _healing powers_. Second place was Hidan, with his scythe that shouldn't be that dangerous, considering it can only hurt whatever it touches. You didn't even come close."

Deidara nodded. "Even when I was kind of trying to hurt someone, I didn't. That's _really weird!_ But, it happened, so I can do that, hm."

Sasori picked his jaw up. _He's serious._ Deidara's eyes were open and honest, a clear sky blue. _He's okay. We brought the worst things in his past forward, and now that we're ninjas, they don't look so bad. _It sounded too easy. Much too easy. Sasori's eyes narrowed. _Even so, I have to keep an eye on him._

"You're still going to be worried about," he informed Deidara.

Dei nodded. "Yeah. I might need it in a day or two; who fucking knows? I just wanted to say, that's how I feel now, yeah. I feel fine."

Nagato softly touched Deidara on the shoulder. "That's good," he said carefully, "because you're going to have to do something with your explosive clay that Konan's sure you've never done before. Are you up for that?"

**Samehada**

Kisame and Kakuzu set the bird down on the very edge of the parking lot, right where it met the street. "Surprisingly light," Kisame commented.

"I'm fairly sure I saw those spiders leave his hand very small and get larger once they landed," Kakuzu pointed out. "If this bird started the same way, then it's not made of nearly the amount of clay it looks like it is."

Itachi tried to see if his Sharingan could determine anything useful. The regular Sharingan couldn't, but his Mangekyo Sharingan saw the world differently. "It's mostly chakra," he observed. "It's not exactly a bird made of clay. It looks more like a bird made of chakra, with clay used as binding material. As if Deidara just uses the clay to assist himself."

"You can see all of that?" Kisame asked.

Itachi deactivated his eyes and shrugged. "I can. Perhaps it has something to do with the Mangekyo's powers. I use it to project my chakra, which is organized in a certain pattern. Maybe that helps it see organizations of chakra as well."

Samehada wriggled back and forth on Kisame's back. He didn't understand how Thinking Human connected his eyes to the bird, but the humans seemed to, so that was alright. Samehada didn't mind missing a few connections here and there. That was what Human Cousin was for. They thought together, with Human Cousin thinking in all the other ways, so together they completely understood something and there was no confusion. Samehada burrowed into Kisame's back and nuzzled his hair. _This is the best!_ No other way of living could be as good as living in this way with Human Cousin. Samehada knew he would miss so many things if he was on his own.

Kisame reached over his shoulder and patted Samehada. "What does that say about Hidan's scythe? It cut through chakra?" He had no idea what to expect from the scythe anymore. It clearly wasn't an ordinary weapon, any more than Samehada was an ordinary shark.

"Can you hold the wing back?" Kisame did so, allowing Itachi to examine the hole in the bird with his Mangekyo. "If it did, it hasn't left any lasting damage. Nothing looks unstable or broken, chakra-wise." Itachi looked toward the hotel. "That is good news because it means the bird is not any more likely to blow up than it was before, so it is still usable. It is also bad news because there's no obvious way to heal it. There are no broken edges to glue back together."

Kakuzu hid his wrist from view as he discreetly checked the black threads there. "If penetrating the bird doesn't make it unstable, I might be able to stitch it together the way I'm stitched together." He did not like that idea, but a bird with a gaping hole in it would not be a good bird for Deidara to use. The blonde kid might be far too loud and energetic, just like Hidan, but that was no reason to leave him without the best thing he had going for him. In fact, it meant the exact opposite; upset children always made more noise than content ones. Kakuzu curled his fingers into a fist. He would put a smile back on Deidara's face or go insane trying.

Kisame nodded. "I hope it's that easy."

Samehada wriggled off of Kisame's back and went to look at the hole in the clay bird. He licked at it. Thinking Human was right; its chakra was frozen in place, like water when it turns to ice, only Samehada sensed that the clay was holding it there too. The chakra would not come apart easily. He poked his tongue into the blade marks in the bird's belly. Samehada drew his tongue back in a hurry and looked up at Kisame, whining loudly. He tasted chakra!

"You taste something?" Kisame asked as he came over to Samehada's side. "Other chakra?"

The shark nodded _Yes, yes._ He tasted the chakra in there more thoroughly. _Bird-chakra tastes like breaking, like rubber bands snapping. Red-claw chakra tastes sharp like cutting._ Samehada was hesitant to press his tongue against the bird's wounds too strongly, as if the chakra could still cut him. He looked up at Kisame to get his attention. He nudged the bird with his snout, then shook wildly and made his best impression of the sound of an explosion. Then he nudged the bird's wounds, and snapped his jaws from side to side, making little hissing sounds to mimic cutting.

Kisame stared incredulously. "You can tell what properties chakra has from its taste?" When Samehada nodded, he turned to Itachi and Kakuzu. "So that means Hidan was boosting his scythe's cutting power with sharp chakra," he concluded. "Or, considering it was far away from him, his scythe has its own chakra it can use to do that. Rule One."

Kakuzu blinked at the three of them. Itachi pulled out his phone. "We should publish the first three Rules right away. They are too important."

While Itachi was writing them out, Kakuzu told Kisame of his short conversation with Hidan. "He all but admitted exactly what you just said," was Kakuzu's interpretation.

Kisame found everything to be lining up too perfectly. "It's just like Same and I," he muttered. "She listed them together when Hidan asked about unique weapons. The scythe may not have a personality - that we know of - but it's unique, has special abilities, and it clings to Hidan like Same clings to me." Kisame didn't know why, but he found this idea to be very eerie. He shivered uncontrollably.

Samehada chirred questioningly and licked Kisame's cheek. _Why does Red-claw scare him? Why does Big Person scare him?_ Samehada warbled confusion. All of the humans were getting increasingly strange around Big Person. They were confused and frightened and other things, mostly bad. Did it have to do with the funny taste in the air? Big Person tasted like the strange taste in the air, and the humans seemed to not like the air. But that didn't tell Samehada why. Why did the taste in the air scare them? Its taste reminded Samehada of hunting, of flashing teeth and blood frenzies he had never participated in, but nonetheless knew of as part of his shark heritage. _Maybe humans don't like blood frenzies._ But what about Human Cousin then? He was a cousin, so he should know about teeth and frenzies. There were a lot of things that didn't make any sense, and Samehada's head was starting to hurt.

"Why is that eerie?" Kisame asked aloud. "Same isn't eerie. I didn't have any trouble thinking the wolves Sakumo works with were like Same and me. Why is the scythe freaking me out?"

Kakuzu shrugged, trying and failing to hide the small shiver that worked across his shoulders. "Your shark's a shark. As in, a_ living being_. It makes perfect sense that he can have a personality and skills like we do. The scythe is different. I think it's creepy in the same way any nonliving object somehow being alive would be creepy. Like horror stories that involve living dolls or the walls watching you," he explained.

Kisame relaxed. "That makes sense." He glanced at Itachi, who was finishing his message. "But we're living in a town with vampires and demons and other creepy as hell things, so we'd better get used to it. This place should be renamed Silent Hill."

"We don't have a hill. Silent Lake would be better," Itachi suggested as he hit Send.

"Renamed? Does this place even have a name?" Kakuzu realized suddenly that he didn't know and had never thought to ask.

The three of them spent a silent ten seconds looking at each other, wondering if anyone had an answer. "That's a damn good question," Kisame finally said. "There are too many damn good questions around here."

"I can't remember the last time I was bored," Itachi said through a smile.

The two older men stared at him. Itachi shrugged. "That is how I feel." He continued to smile.

Samehada growled loudly in agreement and wagged his tail. Life had been nothing but better, better, better! ever since Human Cousin had taken him out of the tank. He'd met so many nice people, and tasted many new and exotic and delicious tastes and made friends and received many more pats and scratches than he ever had and learned many new things! Like that Human Cousin had human Cousins apart from Samehada that he could understand, and that the good tastes in the air and in people were called "chakra," and that everybody liked him and would let him be one of them, a "ninja" just like they were. Samehada wriggled his whole body back and forth, chattering_ Joy joy good things happy love happy tasty good joy fun love want want_ in a constant stream of agreement that this, the time after White Claw Person had shared the good news with them, was a _very good time_.

Kisame's face softened. "Well…" he reconsidered. "If that's how it is, I guess it's not bad at all." He reached out for his shark. Samehada wriggled up his arm and onto his back, nestling against the curve of Kisame's neck where he belonged. The shark was still crooning _Love yes want joy love want_. Kisame understood Samehada's speech well enough to smile. The enthusiasm was infectious. Even Kakuzu was affected. His best efforts were useless for getting his heart to stop softening.

**Konan**

Konan was very unsettled as she walked out the front door of the hotel. Her insides churned with mild but constant anxiety, and everywhere she looked things seemed fragile, slippery, unreliable. _Where is this feeling coming from?_ She continued to wear her flat face and go about her business. She would have preferred spending time either with Hidan or in the basement, but neither was an option._ I need rest._ She really did. But at the moment, there was a potentially dangerous explosive clay bird right outside the base. Rest could wait.

Nagato walked directly next to her, implicitly offering his shoulder to lean on. It was tempting, but she did not take it. Everyone knew she'd spent enough time as an invalid. It was miracle enough that these people were willing to accept it for the several days they had. She needed to reestablish her strength as soon as possible.

"How is it?" she forced herself to ask Itachi. _Please let this be simple._

Itachi smiled at her and Deidara. "My Mangekyo Sharingan can see the organization of chakra, and Samehada also was not frightened by what he tasted. The bird's wounds have not made it unstable."

"Yes!" Deidara smiled as he sat down and cradled the bird's head in his lap. "So he can be fixed easily, yeah?"

"It depends what kind of fix you want," Kakuzu told him. "If it's fully bound together and intact now, good luck getting the hole to close back up. It might be easier for me to stitch it together."

Deidara imagined his white bird with black stitches running along its belly and back. "That would look pretty cool… But I still think I want to try putting him back together first, yeah."

"How will you do that?" Nagato asked. "Will you need to fill the gap with more clay? Or, if it's a question of chakra, will you need to fill the gap with chakra, or somehow work with the chakra he's already made of? The more I think about it, the more complicated a procedure like that sounds." He shifted the stuffed animals in his arms back and forth as he thought.

Sasori held up the hand spider. "If it's going to be complicated, please practice first on small things like this."

Deidara nodded and reached out for the spider. Konan handed him a kunai. He walked some distance away, far enough that a blast like the one Hidan had taken would only be felt as a wave of warm air, and threw the kunai at the spider. It went through the spider's small body, knocking it over and pinning it to the pavement. The spider's little clay legs waved in the air helplessly, eliciting sounds of "Awww!" and "So cute!" from almost everyone present. Deidara took a moment or three to compose himself before approaching and righting his helpless little creation. He murmured soothing words to it as he did so. They sounded far too much like baby talk to Konan's ears. _These versions of them are very strange,_ she was reminded.

He guided it in a little circle, causing himself, Itachi, and Nagato to nearly melt onto the pavement from the cuteness. "Ahem." Deidara cleared his throat. "Business time, yeah! Time to see if I can patch you up, hm." He picked up the little spider and pressed two fingers against the kunai wound, trying to push the clay into place. When that didn't work, he tried squeezing both sides together. Still nothing happened.

Deidara took a deep breath. "Okay, you were right, yeah. It's not coming back together like a wound should, yeah. I'm going to have to...do stuff."

"Is there anything that can keep an explosion from happening, or prevent it from hurting anyone? Like a barrier?" Sasori whispered to Konan. She could not think of anything that would work, much less anything they had the skill to perform. She shook her head.

Deidara held it at arms length while Sasori searched for metal sheeting or something that could take the blast. No dice. They resorted to having Itachi look at it while Deidara worked very slowly, hoping Itachi would have time to warn him of anything going wrong before it was too late.

Deidara stuck his fingers into the hole and tried spreading his chakra into the spider's wound directly. He pulled his hand out after a few seconds and looked at it. "Nothing's happening, hm," he told everyone else. "I mean _nothing_. My chakra doesn't go anywhere, like it's impenetrable, yeah."

Itachi groaned. "According to my knowledge of high school chemistry, breaking the bonds between tightly bonded structures is the mechanism by which explosions happen. If your chakra is really that tightly bonded, it's too dangerous to try to unbind it in order to fix the wound. It will explode."

Deidara pulled his hand back and swallowed. "I've been thinking it's like concrete, yeah. What would happen if you tried to unmake concrete?" The question was obviously rhetorical.

Kakuzu sighed. "Here." He squatted over the little spider and released a thread from his wrist. It was needle-sharp at its point, yet could not penetrate the clay. Kakuzu used his skin-hardening technique, then extended that chakra down into his thread. It was very difficult to do and felt wrong, but he managed to break the clay. Once in, the thread could penetrate the clay without the jutsu, although this involved a lot of effort and forcing on Kakuzu's part. Itachi breathed a sigh of relief to see no change occur in the spider. Kakuzu breathed a sigh of relief to have it over with when he cut the thread off and stood up.

"Does anyone have some more of that chakra Hidan used to sharpen his blades?" Kakuzu asked. "There's no way I'm stitching up that giant bird without a rest otherwise."

_Chakra? I wasn't aware Hidan used wind style techniques._ Konan wondered silently to herself while everyone else reacted to this news. After they were done, she raised a hand. "That's a technique people with a certain type of chakra can use," she explained. "However, I don't think anyone here knows that technique. I was unaware Hidan knew it. A rest would be quicker than learning it from first principles."

Nobody asked, even though she could tell they had questions. _I must be visibly tired. I need rest._ "At any rate, with this question resolved," she waved backwards at the clay bird, "I have other business." _The business of resting. This level of chakra deprivation should have landed me in the hospital, if there were suitable hospitals in this world. _She forced herself down an eternity of hallways and collapsed face first into bed instead.

.

**A/N: There we go, another character just throwing themselves into my story, as if I didn't have enough already. But _oh my goodness _is he a cute spider, yes he is, _yes you are._ I'll allow it. **

**Of course Hidan's scythe has weirdness in it. Why should it be ordinary? It's the scythe he uses for Jashinist rituals, for goodness' sake. There's no way it can possibly _not_ have weird qualities or abilities. **

**This chapter contains a cute spider waving its legs in the air helplessly. Therefore, it must have an omake. **

**Puppy**

Nagato shook his head from side to side as he ran, trying to clear his vision. His cheeks were red from panting. Finally, he took a deep enough breath to call, "H-hey, slow!"

The little puppy he was not so much walking as being walked by turned onto someone's yard and put its paws against a tree, barking at the traces of something that had once been in the tree's branches. Nagato used this as an opportunity to catch his breath. When he had stopped gasping like a drowned man, he called, "Chibi!"

Chibi's tail wagged furiously as the little dog barked up at the tree. It continued to wag as he turned his head to look at his human. Nagato knew there was no way Chibi actually saw him. The puppy's ears flopped in front of his eyes, just like Nagato's hair did for him. He had considered investing in some kind of headband to keep it back.

Nagato held out his hands. "Come back. These people don't want you on their lawn."

Chibi ran back, but instead of jumping into Nagato's arms like he did when they were in a small yard, he veered left and tied Nagato's legs together with the leash before the boy had any idea what was happening. "Chibi!"

Nagato stood still and waited. The puppy soon discovered the flaw in his master plan; with his leash so shortened, he could not run all the way back to the tree. He strained and whined, even pausing to whimper piteously and lick at something invisible with his little pink tongue, but reality was impervious to cuteness. The puppy eventually admitted defeat and trotted back to Nagato with his head and tail hanging low.

Nagato was sitting on the ground waiting for him. "Don't tie me up again," he told Chibi. The dog whined. "And don't run so fast unless I tell you to." The dog wagged his tail. "And the same goes for Yahiko." The dog yipped happily. He didn't run from Yahiko in the first place, so that was alright.

Nagato stood up and stepped out of the coils of leash. "Okay, let's go. And this time, I'm telling you to run that fast." He smiled at the puppy.

Chibi perked up instantly and barked three times, throwing his ears around his face. He spun on his hind legs, fell on his side, then got up again and raced off down the street. His human followed.


	52. How To Be A Ninja Part 3

**A/N: Alright! Next week will be 52 weeks after I published chapter 1. I'm coming up on the first year anniversary of this story. More on that next week.  
**

**Today I have cookies. It is a good day. **

**Sasori was right. Who woulda guessed?**

**.**

**Deidara**

The next morning, Deidara was rudely thrust up from coma-like unconsciousness into bleary half sleep by the need to push his blankets away. He groaned and thrashed, throwing all of his blankets onto the floor. Every pore of his skin prickled with heat. He gasped for air, trying to sit up. His breath shook as he did so. His body temperature felt fifteen degrees higher than it should have been, yet he couldn't stop shivering and shaking. Deidara whimpered again and searched the darkness for a fan. His room was pitch black. He could see nothing.

Suddenly, he gagged and leaned forward, bending low over his stomach. _FIre. There was fire everywhere. _In the nightmare he had just awoken from, Deidara had been trapped in his car, knowing that he was supposed to unbuckle himself and jump out. He remembered doing so before, but this time, he couldn't seem to work the buckle. His hands were just too clumsy. So he did not roll to safety, Sasori was nowhere to be found, and Deidara was trapped with hands that he could not use to save himself in a burning car. He had tried to scream, but could not tell whether he actually made a sound or not. He tried to remember what Yahiko had learned about how to talk to the nature spirits, but his panic was too great. He couldn't remember a single word. The fire spirits giggled in the demon boy's voice and whispered _Your own funeral pyre, your own funeral pyre _in a repeating loop, reminding Deidara that he was a terrible, _stupid_, thick-headed kid whose blind luck had run out. A bright white flame spirit grew curious, and sprouted legs, and hissed like a lit fuse as it crawled into Deidara's mouth…

He gagged again, and lurched as fast as he was able for the bathroom. It was too real. Deidara could feel it, the taste of clay filling his mouth, the brush of legs against the walls of his throat… He grabbed whatever he could find in the unlit bathroom and threw up into it. Afterwards, he was left choking and coughing, spitting out every drop of saliva he could muster to get the acid taste out of his mouth, but his mouth felt empty, and that was all that mattered. Dei stumbled in the direction of the door, bumped his face into the doorframe, and felt around until he finally located the light switch. The thing he had vomited into turned out to be the sink. Deidara nervously approached and looked down. There was nothing white or solid in the sink, and its drain was blocked by a sievelike arrangement of holes so only fluid could drain. He ran water to wash everything down the drain and turned away, sighing. His breath was still too fast, but his temperature was going down. Once the sink was mostly clean, Deidara ran cold water over his hands until his apparent temperature returned to normal. A feeling like a leg brushing against the side of his throat made him gag, but he pushed the feeling away, knowing it was false. He hoped.

Instead of checking to confirm that the feeling was false, he hold onto the sides of the sink and took deep breaths for several minutes. When he was only a little shaky, he left the bathroom and slowly made his way to the main door, where he found and flipped the light switch without hitting his face on anything. Then, with very soft and stealthy steps, his feet automatically stepping so even though Deidara _knew_ that he didn't have any reason to sneak and tried to walk normally, he approached his bed and peered cautiously around its other side.

His breath whooshed out of his lungs as he saw the little spider sitting exactly where he had left it before going to sleep the night before. Deidara slumped against the foot of the bed and ran his hands through his hair as he questioned his prior decision to keep the spider near him. _I shouldn't have done it, hm. I knew I wouldn't be okay forever, I even told Sasori that, but still, I kept it in my room just because I felt good last night. Why did I do that to myself?! _He squeezed his eyes shut and banged the back of his head against the bed. Every time he thought he felt good and things seemed to be looking up, it wasn't true. Dei had predicted last night that he would have a horrible nightmare based on that good feeling, but he'd been tricked by the feeling into thinking that maybe it would be different this time. He'd thought that even if the nightmare happened, he would be stronger, or some other bullcrap. Tears came to his eyes. _It's always a lie. I never really know how okay I am. If even I can't know, who can? _

There was a knock on the door. Deidara jumped and stared, his muscles tensing as if he was about to be attacked. "Who - who's there, yeah?" he asked. _I sound so pathetic. Can I sound any more pathetic? _

"Someone who's interested in not being on fire," answered Hidan. "May I come in?"

Deidara gave his head one final smack against the soft padding of the mattress. He should've remembered about Hidan. His failure to put the spider somewhere reasonable, like outside, hurt more than him alone. "Yeah. Sorry."

Hidan stealthily snuck into Deidara's room, not wanting to disturb anyone in a neighboring room. "I'm sorry too," he whispered as he sat next to Deidara. "I, um… Shit. I should've asked before." Hidan looked away guiltily, his brow twisted. "I don't really know what to do here. I've never done this before. I'm probably the exact opposite of helping. Shit, going on about this isn't either...Sorry."

Deidara stopped and listened. _I've never heard Hidan talk like this before, hm. He always sounds so confident. _Yet the way Hidan spoke sounded familiar, too. _It sounds like...the way I think? Do I sound that unconfident? _For the first time, Deidara started to really think about how he talked to himself. _That's not good, yeah. It's not helpful at all. Am I hurting myself by thinking like that? If I tried to think differently, would I feel better? _A hopeless feeling came back over him. _I do want to feel better...right? _

_Hey, stop it! _He shook his head. That was no feeling to be inflicting on Hidan! Deidara swept his hair back from his face and refocused on Hidan. "What do you mean, yeah?"

Hidan lowered his head into his knees. "I've never stayed around people, like, long-term and shit." He tightened his grip on his knees and rocked back and forth. "I feel when someone's sad, I go up, they talk, they feel better. That's what I do. But if I live with them, should I do that? Should I just barge into people's rooms every time I feel bad? It's gotta be annoying. It's selfish of me."

Deidara put an arm around Hidan's shoulders. "Hey, no." He tried to think of something comforting to say that wouldn't sound fake as hell. _Like the truth, yeah!_ "Thanks for coming over, yeah. I was thinking bad things about myself, and they weren't helping, and you broke that, hm. It's okay if you only come over when it's an unhelpful kind of bad, like that."

Hidan stopped rocking and started thinking. "You mean… I could tell when to come over and when to not?"

Deidara smiled at the hope he heard in Hidan's voice. "Yeah, hm. It's not just random. If someone feels bad, but normal bad, the kind of bad that they can deal with, you don't need to. But if it's something that changes the way you think or it feels like the kind of feeling that's a trap you can't get out of by yourself, then it's good to come in and break the trap, yeah." Deidara was struck at the effect his own words were having on himself. _I sound so calm, yeah. There's a problem, I see it, I talk about it, I make a plan. I can do that, hm. _He felt powerful and competent. _I can do it. It's just like what I said to Sasori about the fight. _Deidara's eyes widened. Could that be his way out?

Hidan looked up and wiped his nose. "Hey… That makes sense. Most people just need someone to bust them out of weird thinking. I never thought about it before, though. Thanks." He gave Deidara a light, friendly elbow to the ribs. "And welcome."

Dei smiled back. "You too." _Talking to him isn't magic, though. I still need to look after myself and not think that everything's magically gone away. _Deidara's heart started to beat faster. He already knew part of what looking after himself meant. "Hey, as long as you're here, can you help me with something?"

.

Hidan was chewing on his hand in an effort to keep himself from compulsively scratching at his hair from nerves. "You sure this is a good idea?" he mumbled around a mouthful of thumb.

Deidara nodded. "I'm sorry you have to worry about your hair, hm. But he didn't do anything to deserve this kind of attitude. I feel bad."

Hidan held his hand with his other hand. "How do you know it's not a she? Why are all of them he?"

Deidara looked at the spider he held in his outstretched arms differently. _It is really round, with long legs. Adorable as hell. Kinda unisex appearance, yeah. Why do I call it he? _"I guess… It might be because I made them, so I think of them being like me, and I'm not feminine, hm," Deidara presumed.

Hidan looked closer at the spider. "Makes sense. If I created shit, they'd be different depending on what they were doing, or maybe nothing at all. Totally understand."

"Yeah." Deidara bent his arms, eventually bringing the spider close enough to cuddle. Shivers ran up and down his back as he remembered the nightmare. He swallowed and cuddled it harder. _It's adorable, cute, waves its little legs in the air from a single knife, hm. Cute and helpless. I made it. It's like a baby, I guess. _He looked down. Thinking of this little spider like a baby was kind of comforting. Then again, it was a comparison he could only make because of its size, which was exactly what was making him nervous in the first place. Deidara held up one palm and opened his mouth as far as it would open. He saw with his own eyes that the spider was much too big. It looked huge next to the mouth in his palm. Deidara shuddered and carefully brought the spider up to touch with his lips. A stray thought snuck in - _What if my chakra accidentally makes him start moving_ \- and Deidara flailed wildly with his chakra to get it to hold still. Panic shot through him. He stopped walking and stood there, shaking. Yet, the spider was clearly larger than his mouth, a fact he could feel for himself. He returned it to his heart and took deep breaths, then started walking again.

Hidan whined, but followed. Even the cold night air of the forest at Way Too Early o'clock could not soothe him. Of course it couldn't. That was a sensation that had to be felt in his skin, make its way up his spine to his brain, and make several more connections from there to be felt as pleasurable. His other sense skipped all of these steps. He sighed and looked up, deliberately focusing on the darkness and the whispers of breezes passing through unseen branches. The demon kid was probably out somewhere. Hidan imagined what the little snake would look like in the dark. He searched for the moon, which was uncovered as the treetops thinned. It was a very ordinary moon, no longer full and shining as it had been little more than a week ago. It was still nice to look at, the curve of its non-circular side almost resembling the curve of Nagato's cheek. If Hidan thought of all these things at once, their combined power easily matched Deidara's nerves. Hidan said "Oooo" as the full night sky came into view over the lake.

Deidara decided he'd tested himself enough. "Okay, so, you take him. He can go on his feet, I guess." Deidara handed his little spider to Hidan, who carefully nestled it on top of the owl's feet. He gave Dei a thumbs-up. The spider fit very well.

Oddly enough, now that he was with his owl, Deidara didn't feel nearly as nervous. _Maybe I get more comfortable with them the longer I have a creation around,_ he reasoned. _Or maybe it's because I know he's very stable. _Kakuzu had stitched up the little spider first, though, so that shouldn't be an issue. He _had_ spent a lot more effort and been much less careful sewing up the owl, though, and Itachi hadn't watched that the whole way. Those were very minor justifications. Deidara was convinced it was his familiarity with the bird.

Hidan tapped him on the shoulder. "I didn't like the grammar of that sentence," he stated, "so you should totally name them."

Deidara shrugged and grinned. "Yeah, I _have_ kept him around for a really long time, hm. He deserves one by now."

"Aaand…?" Hidan pressed. "C'mon…" He leaned in, imploring Deidara with large adorable puppy eyes.

Deidara leaned away. "And…?"

Then it clicked what Hidan had really said. "Huh? Both of them?" Hidan returned to his former position and nodded at a pace to match the world's bounciest bobblehead. Deidara worried about the concussion risk of doing that before he turned and looked at the spider and bird he'd made. "Why would I name the spider? I'm not sure I want to keep him or anything. He can't really do anything but blow up, hm."

Hidan's hand came up. "Tape a knife to his belly and send him to deliver a weapon to a buddy. Tape something else to his back and have him deliver a surprise to someone attacking your buddy. Attach a camera and spy on someone's hideout. Scare the shit out of someone. Smuggle him in your clothes and throw him for a distraction. Tickle him because he's fucking adorable, you shitheel." Hidan kept his fingers ready. "I can count off more if you want."

"Okay, okay," Deidara conceded. "But admit it, you just want me to keep him around as a pet, hm."

"Fuck yes I do," Hidan admitted. "C'mon, do ya honestly think you're gonna get Kakuzu to agree to put decorative stitches in another one? I woke up from my nap earlier because I heard him cursing, which he doesn't do unless he's seriously ticked off. Other stitches wouldn't be the same anyway."

"True…" Deidara didn't actually have any objections to naming the spider. _I am getting kind of attached to him. Maybe I just didn't want to admit that. _He put a hand on his chin and assumed a thinker's pose. He looked at his creations and cleared his mind, allowing the inspiration to flow unobstructed.

_Your bird is not ripped in half,_ Sasori had said. _ He has a hole in him, but he's clay. He'll live. _"You might hate me for this," Deidara said slowly, "but I think I'll call my bird Clay."

Hidan carefully scrutinized the bird. "No, no, I think you're on to something. Clay. Just from the sounds it's made of, it sounds plain but dependable, not fancy. Reliable. Like a buddy. I approve this name," he declared with a decisive nod.

Deidara chuckled. "Okay, hm. I have a couple ideas for the little guy. Legs?"

"Not cute enough."

"Legsy?"

Hidan thought for several seconds. "Sounds weird. Not quite cute, closer to creepy territory, like if he had legs the length of a lawn flamingo's. Doesn't sound like the name of something natural."

"Um...Feetsy?"

"Cute, but not in the right way. Doesn't suit him."

"Dammit." Deidara sighed. "I'm going to have to go with Stitchy, hm. I was trying to be a little more original than that."

"Stitchy, like Itchy, which fits because of his tickly little spider legs," Hidan reasoned. "Oh yes."

Deidara walked up to Clay and traced the new stitches cris-crossing his back. "You know, I was just thinking that I might be more comfortable with Clay because of having him around for longer, yeah. Giving him a name could help me get comfortable with Stitchy." He kneeled down to pet the spider as well. It still made him feel uncomfortable to do so. _It's okay, yeah. I'll get used to him. _

When Deidara straightened up, for no obvious reason, he experienced a sudden impulse to look up at the stars. He raised a hand to Clay's back, then leaped up onto the bird. _Wow. _The stars were captivating from this perspective. Deidara realized he could hear the wind whispering in the trees, too, and feel the cool night air. His throat squeezed as though he were about to cry from relief. Being alone under the cool, dispassionate glow of infinity felt nearly medicinal. The stars gave nothing and demanded nothing, not even that he accept their gifts. They were in ignorance that he even existed, which had this way of taking all pressure off of him. He sighed and laid back, stretching out on top of his clay bird. Deidara discovered what Konan had discovered several days ago, which was that the bird was very nice to lie on staring up in the dark.

Hidan crept up, placing each foot carefully on the loose soil so as not to disturb anything. "Just wanted to say, you're not alone," he whispered.

"I know already," Deidara replied. "Sasori's always reminding me of that."

Hidan shook his head. "No, I mean you're _really_ not alone. When you were there just after the fight, just after I got my scythe back, my vision turned strange. It felt like I was looking at something else, except I wasn't. I don't have anything else to be looking at, so I wasn't, but I felt like I would be seeing something else if I could."

"Huh?" Deidara turned to look at him. "You can feel _that_, too?"

Hidan nodded. "Emotions, but also sensations, and other things that are tied into emotions like attitudes and the way you think of things, shit like that. I can pick up that feeling of being somewhere else that you had."

Deidara swallowed. _He can even feel flashbacks? _The blonde turned to face upward again. He had never wanted to inflict any such thing on Hidan. "Sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be," Hidan reassured. "That feeling doesn't freak me out in the slightest. I know it. I've felt it before."

Deidara's mouth fell open, and his attention narrowed to focus on that one, extremely important sentence. "You have?" _Like me? _

"From Konan," Hidan told him. "Like that time Yahiko joked about his brutal death when y'all had the cards; my vision went all wonky. I think it's happened other times too, also around him."

Deidara threw himself into a sitting position. _What? _"Konan?" He looked at Hidan with horror. "She does that too?" _I thought, after she told us about our powers, that maybe it could be true. But then all the craziness happened, which wasn't similar at all. But then… _"She feels the same?" Deidara had thought she might be the same as him, and she had understood him that one time. He had said as much to Sasori. He'd changed his mind when she began acting unlike any way he had ever acted, even at his worst. After the funeral, though, he hadn't known what to think, but he'd already begun to hope she wasn't the same as him. If it was the same, that would imply very bad things about both himself and her. His mouth dried. _Could I get like that? Could I have helped her? _The second possibility was the worse of the two.

"Kind of," Hidan attempted to describe. "Like, yeah, but _more_. It's fucking..._fucking…_" He put a hand against the bird, which immediately clenched. He shook in a way that frightened Deidara. It wasn't pained shaking. "It's terrible," Hidan growled. "The worst thing. She told me she couldn't tell truth from lies anymore, and when I was around her, neither could I. It was the worst trapped feeling I have ever felt."

He took his hand down and glared up at Deidara. "I **hate** that shit. I can't stand to have my head messed with. If my very fucking _thoughts_ aren't working, what the fuck else is there?! I can't leave her, and furthermore, I won't. It's horrible and bad and shitty and wrong. I won't stand for it. Anything that can make lies look like truth and truth look like lies is wrong. Lies are lies."

His breathing was harsh and his shoulders tensed as they rose and fell. Hidan gritted his teeth as if to drive away the monster right now. Deidara stared at the determined look in his eyes with awe. _Lies are lies. _That was so true. Deidara thought of everything he had thought about himself since watching his campfire buddy joke his way into death. How much was true, and how much was lies? The bad thoughts he had about himself were lies, but so was the good thought that he was strong enough to push through everything after one battle. He had to verify everything he believed, but at least that verification was a thing he _could_ do, because aside from occasional flashbacks and times of panic he tended to be in his right mind. _To not be able to trust anything…_ The very idea opened a pit of dread in Deidara's stomach and brought tears to his eyes. _It's terrible. _

He and Hidan shared a look of understanding. Hidan's eyes sparked with anger and refusal to allow lies to make life more complicated than it was and should be. Deidara's eyes were filled with certainty that he would not be able to live with himself if he allowed anyone else to die in the same trap he had worked so hard to get free from. They blinked at each other. An agreement was made.

Hidan glanced up at the stars, then walked away from the lake and made his way back to Konan's side. Deidara returned to lying on his steadfast clay steed to pass the time until the dawn came.

**Yahiko**

Another person was awake at this time of the early morning. He was alert, not because of nightmares, but because of a natural awakening probably caused by determination to get to his studies as soon as possible.

To Yahiko's delight, each chapter of this particular book began with a basic overview of common nature spirits, including what they liked and disliked and how to avoid their anger. Yahiko bookmarked the table of contents and skipped from chapter to chapter, highlighting the relevant portion of each chapter opening. Once he had visited every chapter, he closed the book and looked at its cover. _What kind of book is this anyway? It's written really weirdly. _The book was titled _A Beginner's Guide To Paganism. _Yahiko had no idea what to make of that.

He looked at the title of the next one before skimming it. _The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies. _Now _this _was much better. It was thick, but at least it didn't assume Yahiko's religious leanings, which he wasn't too sure of at the moment. He opened it, and immediately went running for a notebook upon seeing the length of the table of contents. If this wasn't a complete encyclopedia, he didn't know what was. _At least it's probably, maybe, possibly a little less than what actual med students have to go through. _Yahiko wondered what Nagato would say about the workload. Then he thought of what Konan would say. _She wants to keep me from being hurt. Does that also include being hurt mentally? _It had to. Yahiko looked down at the _Complete Encyclopedia_ and took a deep breath, exhaling firmly through his nose. The determined look in his eyes could have knocked Nagato to the floor. _I promise, then. If I reach a condition where I'm seriously thinking of having a breakdown of any kind, I am right now ordering myself to take a full day of rest, relaxation, and company. I will not allow myself to be driven to any kind of anxiety or panic attack. _He challenged the encyclopedia's enormous table of contents to say otherwise. It remained silent. He grinned, flipped back through the other book to write down everything he had highlighted, then proceeded to dive into _The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies_.

He withdrew a long time later when a part of his forehead just behind his eyes ached too much to be ignored. Yahiko pressed a hand against his forehead. "Ow, ow, ow," he whispered. _Eye strain. Another thing that's technically an injury, so I should avoid it. _That was going to be difficult, though. This book was just _so_ interesting. He had no idea where it could possibly have come from, and the name of the author didn't ring any bells, but there was much more to _The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies_ than its title indicated. Yahiko kept his eyes closed (it hurt to even blink) and visualized to himself the different images he had seen in the book of many different spirits, of many different species, all of which the book insisted on categorizing as "fairies." Yahiko had never thought to question his definition of fairies before, but soon after reading the first several entries in the _Encyclopedia_ he had seriously questioned his previous definition. Why _were_ most images of fairies human or at least humanoid? If they belonged to natural environments, then it really did make more sense for them to resemble creatures who depended on those environments, not a species that visited many environments but mastered none. The same reasoning could apply to any other thing that was supposed to belong to natural environments, like dryads. The _Encyclopedia_ was opening Yahiko's eyes very wide to how anthropocentric many parts of his worldview were. He would have to get very, very used to nonhuman species if he was going to be successful at negotiating with them.

Luckily, the _Encyclopedia_ included a map right at the front showing different kinds of forests, and was careful to specify that this was the complete _world_ encyclopedia of forest fairies and, of course, any specific area would hold only a fraction of the creatures listed therein. It was good that Yahiko found the material intrinsically interesting and would happily keep reading for fun; otherwise he might have become frustrated at his inability to determine which creatures he could safely ignore. The map did not tell him what kind of forest he was dealing with. In fact, he could not locate his region on it at all. _What is with that map? _It corresponded to no known geography, at least not of this world. Yahiko wondered if the book had come from a different world. _Why does that other world speak our language? _Another mystery.

The pain behind his eyes began to let up, but Yahiko had no doubt it would return if he dared open them before it was completely gone. He took deep breaths to distract himself from the waning pain, only to discover a new source of pain he could occupy himself with. "Ohh," he groaned as he creaked his neck from side to side. _I should not read in this position for long stretches of time. I wish I had known this before. _The facts that he had not been conscious of his position, anything else in the room, and even time passing were all irrelevant facts that he dismissed.

Yahiko got to his feet, with much stretching of his back, and stumbled his way blindly to the door, where he turned off the lights. The darkness was an instant relief. He then fumbled his way back to bed and eased himself into it, lying straight and flat and resolving to lie that way for a long time. Yahiko wondered where else he could study that would be more comfortable. _Maybe I could use that chair in the sunroom. It's large enough to kind of curl in, and soft, and the room itself has really good lighting and a soft atmosphere. It's perfect. Does the door have a lock? It wouldn't be perfect to be distracted anytime anyone wanted to use the sunroom. _He imagined Hidan coming in to lie on the carpet in the afternoons when the sun shone into the room, and decided that was alright. He imagined how the room would be in the summer, if it would be uncomfortably hot. Then, for a long time, he imagined many things, not thinking about or deciding about any of them. They just passed before his eyes: soft rolling visions.

_Summer had arrived, and it was hot. The cement pavement scorched Yahiko's feet as he peered down into the cool blue water. He dripped with sweat and exhaustion, and longed for the water that promised to relieve all of it. If only he could jump in!_

"_Why can't you just go in?" asked some kind of voice. It probably belonged to someone he knew. Or maybe not. It was that kind of indeterminate voice. _

"_I don't have a tampon for my female form," Yahiko whined. Everyone knew the pool rules: All female swimmers must have a tampon with them. No exceptions. _

"_I have one," Sasori said while holding up a box. "Go nuts." The engineer reclined in a sun chair, wearing briefs with wrenches all over them. His skin was pasty white. He wore sunglasses. _

_Yahiko dove in. He cried out with joy as soon as he did so. It was glorious. He could feel all pain, all exhaustion, all sweat lift from him instantly, and cool soothingness take their place. He closed his eyes and gave himself over to pleasure. _

"_Oh no, oh no," Yahiko whispered. The swimmer on the screen before him had closed his eyes. This wasn't the kind of movie where that was safe to do. He saw the water darken and heard the orchestral music rise. He silently urged the swimmer to get out of there, open his eyes and swim away, though he knew the character couldn't hear him. _

_Out of the darkness swam a sinister figure. It was wreathed in black, giving the impression of having an aura of darkness. Its white skin seemed deathly pale. Its yellow snake eyes glinted as it hunted. It swam right toward the swimmer. _

_Yahiko found in his hand a white paper pole and, leaping high over the pool, speared the water with it, stabbing it into and through the concrete of the pool directly in front of the snake, interrupting the creature's death charge. The swimmer opened his eyes and swam away, emerging from the water safe and sound. Yahiko landed on top of the water and stared down at the snake. The beast turned up to look at him, revealing that what he had taken to be long black hair in the water really _was_ an aura of darkness, and the beast's true hair was white and spiky. Its mouth was a dark void. He was terrified. He tried consoling himself with the knowledge that the creature could not breach the surface of the water, which was cool and glassy beneath his palms. He was not consoled. He was not very good at consoling himself. _

"_I got this," declared Hidan. The white-haired man dove through the water, using the blades of his scythe as a tail to swim down to the beast. It attacked, brushing against Hidan as he barely avoided its teeth. Yahiko gasped as Hidan screamed. _A touch! _It was too late. Before Yahiko could move, Hidan shuddered, and invisible miniature blades sliced everything to pieces. The beast contorted in agony as its long, streamlined body started leaking blood from many places, the cloud of red replacing its shroud of darkness. The water gave a tremendous splash in protest at being so injured. The ghostly ducks on its surface cried and swam away, taking the water with them toward the far end of the pool. Said far end was built of concrete, which had also been slashed with miniature blades. Its bonds were broken on a very small fundamental level, weakening its structure. The crying ducks took the water with them, because they were water spirits, piling the water up against the weak end of the dam. _

"_No!" Yahiko screamed. He left the demon-snake-fish thing to its death throes and, by squeezing one of his sliced hands, generated a trail of blood he could move on until he caught up to the water. He handled the controller very carefully, staring at the television screen in front of him, aware that he was supposed to be playing a racing game but not wanting to guide his racer off the liquid track. If he beached his player on solid ground, the game would be over. Yahiko whimpered as the avatar he controlled skidded from side to side, threatening to careen onto solid ground. During a particularly critical turn, the controller slipped out of his hands and down the stairs. Yahiko looked back and forth from it to the screen anxiously, before diving down the stairs after the controller. _

"_Did you drop this?" Nagato reached down from his seat on the couch and handed the dropped controller to Yahiko. The flickering light of a disco ball crossed over Nagato's features as shadowy silhouettes of dancers and party goers laughed on the other side of the couch._

"_Yes!" Yahiko took it back. "Thank you!" _

_Nagato waved him off. "Don't thank me. Just please get around to emailing my dad a shark like you promised."_

"_I know, I'm so sorry!" Yahiko looked back upstairs anxiously. "I'll get it, I just - I'm so busy…" Everyone at the party had stopped talking and was now staring at him. Yahiko cringed from embarrassment and ran back upstairs. Those looks were why he hid in his room all the time. _

_Was his room on the left, or the right? Yahiko couldn't remember. He ran through the long, coiling hallway, trying door after door. More than a few of them opened to reveal someone showering, so he got screamed at. Yahiko berated himself for forgetting about that door; he'd seen Hotel Transylvania before, he knew where the door with the skeleton's wife was. Eventually, after receiving a multitude of tips that turned out to be wrong, Yahiko collapsed against a wall, panting. He could almost hear his player crashing onto solid ground, and whimpered. A dumbwaiter heard his cries of despair and rose through the wall, opening on the wall he was leaning against to speak to him. "Your room is on the first floor, to your right," it informed him in a British accent. He thanked the dumbwaiter (What was his name? Malcom?) thanked Malcom, and raced downstairs. _

_He raced to plug the controller back in, which took several tries thanks to his shaking hands, and managed to turn his player away from the edge at the last moment. Yahiko breathed a sigh of relief. _

_The dam was so close, so close! He strained to reach it, strained to run faster, but accidentally strained too hard. He crashed into the dam, causing it to break catastrophically and spill all of its water downstream. _Oh no, I destroyed the Hoover Dam! _He cringed to imagine what Nagato would have to say about this. He'd destroyed the Hoover Dam, and _still_ hadn't gotten around to emailing Jiraiya a shark. Maybe there would be a shark in the Colorado River he could use. Yahiko waited to land in the Colorado River and find out, but he never did. _

Oh! It's another part of the pool!_ He raised his hands above his head and screamed with joy as he raced down the water slide. _How did I never find this part before? It's awesome! _He screamed happily all the way down the many twists and turns of the water slide. _

_It emptied out into the same pool he had dived into before. "This is why I bring 'em," Sasori commented, shaking his box. _

_Yahiko would have nodded in agreement, if he didn't have a duck perched on top of his head. "What's this?" he asked as more and more ghostly water ducks came to surround him. _

"_You went into something you didn't know anything about?" Hidan shook his head incredulously. "That's either really brave or really stupid. The water's an initiation ritual, dude. You just passed the initiation rite to become one of them."_

"_Oh…" Yahiko panicked as the ducks began to chant. He didn't know what water fairies did. How could he do a job he didn't know anything about?! He looked for a duck to ask about his new responsibilities, but they were all busy chanting. _

A tremendous crash awoke Yahiko. His eyes flew open in the darkness, the chanting of the ducks still in his ears. His eyes complained, but very little as they adjusted to the light shining through Yahiko's door. He raised a hand to block out the light for a few seconds, then remembered the crash. "Huh?"

"Oh…" Nagato became very, very still as he looked back at the book he'd tripped over, the other books scattered around, and Yahiko lying on the bed. "You were asleep?"

Yahiko blinked. "I guess so." He remembered his dream. "You won't believe what I was just dreaming about."

Nagato stood up, looking sheepish. "I'm sorry for waking you; I thought you'd already be up." He flushed at his failure to take into account Yahiko's new studies. He couldn't expect to know anything about Yahiko's sleep schedule now that he was probably going to be studying into the night. Nagato promised to remember that for the future. "What was it?" he asked as he sat next to Yahiko, on Yahiko's bed.

Yahiko tried to describe it as best he could. "...so the snake kid was a monster, and attacked me, except it wasn't me because I was all of a sudden watching this on TV, but then I stabbed through the water like Konan stabbed through the demon, because I was suddenly back in the scene somehow, and it stopped his attack…" Nagato listened to the whole adventure, his facial expression growing more fascinated and disbelieving by the second.

Yahiko finished with, "I could still hear the ducks chanting for a few seconds after you woke me up. Thank you for waking me! I have no idea what I would have been asked to do as a duck cultist."

Nagato had been silently laughing for the past two minutes, but at the words "duck cultist" he burst out into full laughter, his vocal cords joining the fun. He bent so far forward he fell off the bed onto the floor, where he curled up, still laughing.

Yahiko burst out laughing too. It was infectious. As Nagato finally started to get his diaphragm under control, Konan walked in. "What are you two laughing about?" she asked as she observed the unlit room and scattered books. Footsteps could be heard from the hall behind her.

Nagato opened his mouth to speak, burst out laughing again, then got himself back under control and tried again. "Duck cultists!"

By this time Yahiko had recovered. He nodded to confirm Nagato's report. "Duck cultists, and emailing Nagato's dad a shark, and Hidan beating a snake monster while using his scythe like a fish tail." He considered those the high points of his adventure.

Hidan appeared behind Konan, along with Deidara. Konan tilted her head. "I take it this was in a dream?"

"I beat a snake monster?!" Hidan asked. "How? How? Was I awesome? Did I use cool powers?"

"Kind of?" Yahiko replied. "You swam down to meet it, and it tried to attack, but it only brushed against you. Dream Me freaked out because touching you was really bad, and you screamed, and then everything was sliced up. The snake monster started bleeding everywhere, the water was cut up, and even the concrete was sliced up. But not in the normal way. The slices were _really, really_ small, so they somehow cut up the concrete on a level that made it weaker, but I don't remember any seeable gashes," Yahiko explained with a frown. Now that he actually tried to describe what had happened, it no longer was funny. It felt very serious. _Kind of familiar, too…_

Hidan shrugged. "Not the kind of cool power I has hoping for, but hey, I'll take it."

"Huh." Deidara had a matching frown on his face as he pictured the scenario. "That sounds kind of…"

"Familiar? You too?" Yahiko asked.

"Yeah, yeah, what's it…" Deidara mumbled. "It _does_ feel kind of familiar…"

Hidan grumbled. "I don't remember it feeling familiar before you guys said that, but now it does, but that's probably because of you guys, so I don't know. Fuck!"

"That's because you don't remember," Konan finally said, after being silent the whole time. Her eyes were concentrated on Hidan almost enough to pierce his skin. "You didn't see the people at the bar start bleeding from nowhere after the succubus touched you, or the chair break over someone's head when you told me wood was supposed to be stronger than that." Her eyes were aglow. Hidan felt a sense of tremendous personal satisfaction.

He stared back at her. Had that really happened? It felt vaguely uncomfortable to think about, but not so much that he couldn't push through it. "So, wait, that really happened? Not a dream?"

Yahiko and Deidara both stared at him. That was it! They both remembered people bleeding, shortly before they'd gotten caught up in other things. Yahiko's face lit up. "Yeah, I remember that! I guess Dream Me figured out what was behind that, even though I haven't thought of it at all actually." He hadn't remembered the bleeding since the night where it had happened. Even the day after, he had only been thinking about Hidan and the succubus, not the bystanders around them. Yahiko was amazed to discover that he was capable of losing track of people that were hurt so easily. It wasn't a good kind of amazement.

Hidan scratched his head. "Okay." He looked uncomfortable. "That's cool, when Dream You has shit figured out and shit. Maybe you should keep a journal or something."

Yahiko rubbed his neck. "Maybe. I already have a lot of studying to do…" He eyed the _Encyclopedia. _

"Do not worry," Konan counseled Hidan. "I am suddenly in the mood to occupy your time." She scratched right at the base of his neck, causing Hidan to purr.

"Maybe I could help you study?" Nagato asked as he sat next to Yahiko again. He really hoped Yahiko would say yes.

Deidara looked at Konan with an analyzing expression. He decided Hidan was doing a good enough job putting a smile on her face and relaxed.

"Don't you all have day jobs?" Konan asked with a dismissive wave of her hand.

The room turned dead silent aside from the sounds of fingers brushing through hair and purring. "_Shit_," Deidara said. Nagato facepalmed. Yahiko groaned in intense aggravation. This reminder was very unwelcome. After the past weekend, when they had made so many new and fascinating plans for their futures, the idea of leaving that behind for eight hours of the day was an obstacle, a nuisance. Just as they reached forward into their new lives as ninjas, they were dragged back. It was nearly unbearable.

Yahiko picked up _The Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies. _"If I have to work, I'm taking this with me," he declared. _At least for reading, even if I can't make notes! _Yahiko found the time to wonder why he was so desperate. _I need to read more. I need to. _He didn't remember being this desperate before his dream. Did the duck cultists have something to do with his new fervor? They probably did.

Nagato sighed into his hand. "I guess...later?" he said in the voice of one who is about to serve a prison sentence. "When I get out, we can go over what you read."

Deidara bit his lip. On the one hand, he didn't have a day job to go to, exactly. But he did generally spend his days doing other things, and he remembered it'd been a few days since he'd seen Laurie so he should tell her about the fight and his new training program, and…

It was enough to make Hidan stop purring and hang his head listlessly. Konan looked around. None of them looked at all happy to be returning to their lives in this world. A week and a half ago, she would have thought that was a good thing. Now, Konan was of mixed mind about it. She was happy that they wished to be part of her world again. But, at the same time, they had demonstrated abundantly over the past week and several days that they did live in a different world than she did. Were they, perhaps, going too far, as she had done when she went out with Yahiko and Nagato? Should she stop them from losing touch with their previous lives, like she had feared losing touch with hers? She saw in her mind's eye two worlds like circles, overlapping in the middle. Where was that middle? Where was the fence they could straddle in order to all be together safely?

She looked back at Hidan and wondered if it was even fair to ask them to be ninjas. The ninja life was a life all of its own. How could it coexist with anything else? A week ago, hell, _yesterday_, she had yearned for the trappings of ninja life. Yet, the way they talked at the party, as a bunch of civilians debating ideas freely without a care in the world, had also been very appealing. It was as if she wanted them to be ninjas and to be what they were now, simultaneously. That wasn't possible. Was it?

A little seed of an idea slowly, slowly began to crack open in Yahiko's mind. A little root wiggled out of its coat and reached down into the soil. Yahiko's brows furrowed as he stared down at the _Encyclopedia. _"Hey, Dei? Turn on the lights."

Deidara did so. Yahiko's brow furrowed further as he placed the book on his lap and looked at the cover. It didn't look very different from any normal book. Yet, the map inside showed lands he did not know. The idea sent shoots up into the air, spreading its first leaves.

He opened the book and looked at the map. If he was right, it was a map of another world. Konan had never mentioned her world having spirits, or "fairies" as this book called them. She had also been surprised by the presence of demons. The idea spread dark green, fully grown leaves.

He tapped the map with one finger. And to think, a book like this had been found just across town, in the library. The only library in the entire town. The library that had basically everything they needed. The library that was northeast of the park, which was filled with greenery and a small pond and moths that fluttered like ghostly spirits in the night air. The idea budded, bloomed, and closed its flowers.

Yahiko thought about his place of work, south of the library, and remembered that all the people he saw there were NPCs who did not react to the things they should react to, or in the proper way. The idea's fertilized blooms matured into fruit, and something clicked in Yahiko's mind. He understood.

"Hey." He need not have spoken, since everyone's attention was already on him. They had instinctual ideas of what an impending epiphany looked like, and knew they needed an epiphany. Yahiko held up the book. "This book is wrong," he declared. "It says it's the Complete Encyclopedia of Forest Fairies, but that's wrong. We don't have to be in the forest to find what it's talking about. It's talking about cool things that we need to know about in order to deal with, and those things don't belong to the forest. They're all over town! _Town_ is weird too, just like the forest is!" He put the book back in his lap. "There's no division around here between being ninjas and being regular people. We can be ninjas in the forest, in town, _everywhere." _Yahiko bit his lower lip. "I can study medical or spiritual stuff in town. There's no difference. I don't have a normal life and a ninja life. At least, I don't _now._ They're the same thing."

Nagato's eyes widened. "So...I don't have to save all of the important business for after I get out of my normal, not-supernatural at all day job," he summarized. "My job isn't any more normal than my time here is?" He wasn't sure he believed that, but he started to feel better all the same.

Deidara looked at his hands. They grinned back. "Laurie's going to _love _Stitchy, yeah," he realized.

Hidan resumed purring. "Well, yeah. What have you fuckers been doing? Keeping demons and ninjas and shit a secret from everyone? You don't_ have_ to. They're NPCs! They don't give a fuck."

"We're officially calling the normal people in town NPCs?" Nagato clarified. "Even though we're probably not in a video game?"

"They're _not_ normal," Hidan argued. "That's not even accurate to call 'em normal! Just because they're not ninjas doesn't make them normal." He declared, "If it walks like an NPC and quacks like an NPC, it's an NPC."

That was sound reasoning. Nagato pulled out his phone to spread this proclamation all throughout the land. "Gotta love smartphones," he murmured. "They really cut down on the need for town criars." _Hidan has officially declared that all the people who are completely human and do not notice or react to weird things are henceforth to be known as NPCs. They are not "normal," if such a thing even exists. If it walks like an NPC and quacks like an NPC, it's an NPC,_ Nagato texted. The last line reminded him of Yahiko's dream. After hitting Send, he wrote a followup message that read, _BTW, Yahiko had a dream about duck cultists. _

After sending this message out to all the known lands, he turned and asked Yahiko something he should have asked from the start. "Wait a second. Were they _duck cultists_, or _cultist ducks_?"

Yahiko thought about this question. "I think they were _both._ They were ducks that surrounded me after I completed the initiation rite and started chanting," he recapped for everyone else. "So they were cultists that just happened to be ducks, but they were also ducks that just happened to be cultists, because I didn't _know_ they were cultists until after Dream Hidan told me."

"Dream Me is **fucking awesome!**" Hidan whooped with joy. "I am so honored." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.

"You're welcome!" Yahiko smiled.

"Um…" Deidara raised his hand. "Speaking of cults, I kind of feel like an outsider to you four," he pointed out. "Should I go?"

Konan did not say whatever she had been about to say and instead looked around. There were Nagato and Yahiko, practically one person with two bodies, and there was Hidan, who had elected himself to be her guardian. Guardian, brother, and Yahiko. She realized Deidara was absolutely right.

"Nah, I got shit to talk to you about," Hidan said while extracting himself from Konan's hand. He extracted himself very gently. "Of course I'm still on for that time-occupying you mentioned," he purred to Konan. "Just taking a teensy little five minute break first to get everything in order." He guided Deidara out into the hall.

"What is it, yeah?" Deidara asked him.

Hidan rubbed his hands together. "So, about what we said earlier, I'll take up her time today. She seems to want to do things for me, which should be a boost to her self-confidence. You hang out with Laurie, have some fun, show her your spider, all that," Hidan said with a wink. "I'll text you if she has spare time. The point is, have fun! See town. Hang with Laurie. That's real shit. It is not lies, it is not being cooped up with yourself. Those are things that really exist and are worth things. If she has spare time, you can bring it all back to tell us about it."

Deidara rubbed his chin. "So if _I _have real experiences, it'll help Konan have a better relationship with reality when I tell her about them," he interpreted.

Hidan nodded. "Go out and look around, see what the truth is. No lies."

Deidara shrugged. That was sound enough reasoning. "Alright! I'll tell Laurie you said hi, yeah."

"Don't waste your time with that," Hidan murmured conspiratorially. "Keep an eye out for what Sunshine mentioned, the weird things in town. They're better hidden, so bring Clay." He winked again. "Make a date out of it."

Deidara remembered flying with Laurie holding onto him and colored. "Shut up!"

Hidan giggled and ran off before Deidara could do anything to make him.

.

**A/N: The first paragraph (except for the shivering and shaking) is taken directly from my own experiences in recent weather, where the temperatures that are juuust cool enough for me to get to sleep cause me to, as part of awaking, experience a heat flash for no apparent reason. I don't remember this from previous summers, but I haven't been paying attention in previous summers, so it might've happened. Yes, it is NOT a matter of genuinely overheating, because getting up and becoming more active makes me more comfortable, whereas staying in bed is an exercise in endurance. It really is (probably) connected to the physiological changes of waking up, or perhaps it IS the change that caused me to wake up. It also happens only when I take a nap in the middle of the day, never when I wake up in the morning. So weird.**

**I know I previously stated I don't know what language they're speaking. However, there is no other line of reasoning Hidan could possibly use to decide if a name is good or not, except for what it sounds like! That's the only reasoning I use for names. So, if they aren't speaking English, then whatever language they _are_ speaking has words for Clay and Stitchy that sound like how Hidan described them. **

**Did I not mention that? When I said I don't know what language they're speaking, I was thinking of some kind of neutral third language, because _obviously_ the world clones don't speak Japanese. Who knows what this imaginary language is like, if it exists. **

**This is my favorite dream sequence so far, and the most accurate. Previous dream sequences had yet to incorporate the "suddenly switching viewpoints" aspect of my dreams. All that is left now is to incorporate the "suddenly switching people" aspect. Sometimes I disappear from my dreams entirely, and I'm Naruto or Hidan or some random OC that I only just then imagined myself to be. This mostly happens when I already have the third-person perspective, but sometimes it happens in first person, too. I look forward to next time. **

**Last chapter contained an omake called Puppy. Therefore, this chapter must have an omake. **

**Kitty**

Hidan sat back against the bushes bordering someone's property to enjoy his ice cream. He squirmed as the cold soaked into his pants. It was winter. He wouldn't have been eating ice cream if it wasn't winter, because eating extra sweets ruined the fun of seeking out the best berry bushes in the forest. Alternatively, ice cream could be eaten if he was in Kakuzu's house and Kakuzu wanted to give him a treat, but he wasn't in Kakuzu's house right now. Not being in Kakuzu's house meant winter, when there were no berries in the woods, was the only acceptable season to eat ice cream in.

Hidan's face was soon covered with brown from his chocolate ice cream. He considered relaxing his restrictions for chocolate. Chocolate wasn't like other sweet things. It made the taste of fruit stronger, instead of competing with it. Yes! He grinned and looked forward to summer days spent with chocolate and wild raspberries.

He had sucked out all the ice cream and chewed through half the cone when he detected a small noise out of the corner of his ears. Hidan stopped immediately and looked to his left. Out of the bushes crept a feral domestic cat, which plainly had not noticed him yet. When it did it froze, as feral domestic cats do, and stared at him. He didn't move, so it didn't. It tucked its legs beneath itself and sat down to watch him.

Hidan blinked slowly at it. The cat stared. He tilted his head. Hidan had no memory of domestic cats, except for the occasional feral he saw running away from him. Yet, he felt that domestic cats meant good things. Maybe, in the past, he had known some, and this feeling was the only trace left. He kept his hands on the ground at his sides so he wouldn't scare it, and asked, "Mrro?"

The cat flicked its tail. It was not in the mood for friendship. Hidan lowered his gaze to the pavement between them, then looked into the bushes, trying to be approachable. The cat blinked several times, and its tail lowered to the ground. Hidan continued to carefully investigate the bushes over his shoulder. The cat's ears eventually assumed a more relaxed position. Of course it wasn't fully relaxed and could get up and run quickly if needed, but this human's behaviors were reassuring. The cat looked down and licked a front paw once, looking right back up like a wary squirrel, just in case this human tried anything. Humans sent wrong, deceitful signals sometimes, so friendly behaviors did not mean a human was friendly.

Hidan blinked more quickly as his eyes warmed. He knew he wasn't a cat. But he wasn't much like a human either, and he was at least _like_ a cat, so that didn't matter most of the time. It only mattered when he was with a cat, apparently. He kept acting friendly, hoping it would come to trust him.

The cat sat up. There was no reaction from the human. So, as if it didn't care and had come to fully trust him, the cat turned away and began to wash itself.

Hidan watched it lick its short-fingered paws, then turn and bend underneath its foreleg to lick its side. He curled his hand slowly, folding his fingers down. So this was how cats groomed when they were alone. He had wondered what to do without pridemates.

Hidan was surprised to hear the cat begin to make a low rumbling sound. Instinctively, he recognized that sound as good. Hidan swallowed incompletely, bringing moisture to the back of his throat, and tried for himself. A pleasant rumble resulted. He purred louder. It was a very good sound! Making it made him feel good all over.

The cat stopped washing. This human was... Well, it was still a human. But humans were only _possibly _dangerous, not _always_ in this cat's experience, so it stood up and, slowly, turned its back on the human.

Hidan held very still and continued to purr to reassure the cat that he wasn't moving. The cat walked away, disappearing into someone else's yard. Hidan stopped his purr, because the moisture in his throat had gotten out of position, and swallowed to get it back. Before he resumed purring, he raised his hand with curled fingers, licked it, and brushed it against the side of his head as the small cat had done. It wasn't as good as rubbing the side of his head against something or someone else was, but Hidan found that his knuckles felt very good on his cheek.

He purred with happiness at having learned to purr, and spent the rest of that day practicing domestic cat behaviors. They were a lot like cub behaviors he'd already learned, and _very good things._

_._

**A/N: This is how I learned to purr. Try for yourself; accumulating moisture in the throat probably isn't how real cats purr, but it works well enough for a human. Swallowing incompletely means bringing moisture to the very back of your throat as if you were about to swallow, but not actually making the tongue movement to swallow. Purring can also be done without doing this first, assuming one has not done anything to dry their throat for a while and is adequately hydrated.  
**

**I'm not too familiar with cat psychology, but I've read stuff, seen a bunch of rogue cats while walking, and turning my back to enjoy companionable silence is what _I_ would do if I trusted someone. If any cat whisperers read this, feel free to correct me. In particular, I've only seen rogue cats do the sit and stare while I was walking by. Would they do that for a stationary target?  
**

**(Rogue = not living in someone's house. Who am I to tell if they're wild or just escaped? Also I'm a fan of the Warriors series, read everything that I could get in the library when I was 12ish. Or somewhere like that. I rarely remember, or have to do detective work to deduce, what age I was when something happened.)**


	53. The Meaning Of Leadership

**A/N: Hey guys! I just a few minutes ago started a new folder to contain upcoming documents called "New Life Year Two" because this thing publishes weekly and I have 52 chapters, so, that's a year. That makes the publication of this chapter the anniversary (minus two days) of the publication of the very first chapter!  
**

**To mark the occasion, aside from creating a new and easier-to-navigate folder, I want to thank everyone. Of particular note in that tremendous group are Kiki, who left the first and so far only review to specify what exactly it was that they liked about my story. Specificity is good; thank you for that. I'm pretty sure ThatSexyShikamaru is still the only reviewer to have left a review with an account, but who cares when they're awesome in general? If there had been anybody else, I'd merely have to list more names next to yours. **

**Stepping out of fanfic land, hey when I said everyone I meant _everyone._ That includes my therapist, who I started with after I'd published several chapters of this story. I think I've said before that this story's essentially a weird kind of therapy. Between the two of them, I've enjoyed a lot of progress over the past year. It also includes my family, even though they're all forbidden from reading my stories, on the grounds of general principle. My professors! Because teachers are the best people ever. **

**But most of all, I'm grateful for the cooperation of the people in my head. Thank you, guys. Double the thanks for Nagato and triple it for Sasori. You hear me?**

***sniff* Mwow. **

**.**

**Yahiko**

_Patience. Deep breaths. In, out. That's what it is to be a ninja. Practice patience. _

Yahiko bit his lip to keep from groaning. He didn't _want_ to be patient, he wanted to be reading more about forest spirits that may or may not be his neighbors. Next to that, what use was organizing racks of clothes or cleaning out changing rooms? He spent five minutes trying to decide whether one article should go in front of or behind another in the rainbow he arranged the rack into, and ultimately gave up because he couldn't muster the concentration to really think about it at all. What did it matter if a camisole was a slightly lighter or darker shade of peach than the one next to it? They were both just clothing.

Yahiko caught himself. _What am I saying? Clothing matters. Good choices of clothing make the person wearing them feel good about themselves, send a message about who they are, things like that. I know clothing matters, because I spent so much time performing Transformation Jutsu in order to give myself just the right outfit. _Despite that, right then, there seemed to be only one article of clothing that mattered enough to be included on the list of things that mattered most. Yahiko's more ordinary interests were being crowded out.

He tried to push through it. He tried to look around when he wasn't busy, see if anything or anyone strange entered the store. Neither strategy worked. He performed some chakra control exercises he'd devised with Sasori's help, but rather than satisfying his need for fulfillment, they increased it so that he felt _more_ uninspired and unmotivated by everything he looked at. _It's a department store. It's not supposed to be a place full of energy and life. It's a nice place where I can relax for a while. _But he did not _want_ to relax. He wanted to be trying new things, learning, making new plans. The strength of this desire scared him. _Am I going nuts like Konan did? _

At some point, the head of his department must have come over to discreetly supervise his work, because she walked up to him while he was in the middle of returning items from the changing room. Yahiko tried not to spill anything as he jumped. _How did I not see her coming? _His attention was more frayed than one would expect of a ninja. His fear that he might be losing control of his mind increased.

She pulled him over to some chairs against the wall. Yahiko put down his load and followed. She sat across from him in what he would have recognized as therapist mode, if he had ever been to one. "Are you all right?" she asked. "I'm concerned about you. You looked worried and tense just now. Is everything okay?"

Yahiko remembered the epiphany he had had earlier, that his time away from the base need not also be time away from being a ninja. "No," he admitted. "I've, um…" His jaw opened and closed. He was suddenly unable to form any idea of what he could say next. _What do I say and how do I say it? _"Um…" He looked for inspiration. _What would Nagato say? _"Well…" _What would Hidan say? _Hidan had said that NPCs didn't care, that there was no reason to hide anything from them. Yahiko had no idea how to see his boss as an NPC instead of a person, but he took a deep breath and gave it his best try. "I'm learning medical jutsu, and also researching forest spirits in case we have some," he hesitantly said. His voice was barely more than a whisper. He fought not to cringe as he said it. _How crazy do I sound? _

Her face softened. "It sounds like you have a lot on your plate," she said soothingly. "Is there anything you need? Anything that could help?"

Yahiko met her eyes. They were clear and blue, and they looked just as concerned for him as she had claimed. His shoulders untensed and relaxed. He hadn't noticed they were tense. He looked down at the floor. _What do I need? _He was very confused to find that the urge to get away and curl up with his book was no longer as strong. _How? Why? I thought I needed to express this crazy energy inside, do all of the things that seem so much more important than clothes right now. _His boss still sat across from him, being very reassuring. Yahiko reminded himself of his epiphany. _Or maybe, I just needed to feel like I wasn't being trapped away from being able to be a ninja. _He looked back up at her and smiled. "Thank you, I… I think I just needed to be able to talk about it at all while I was here."

She gently touched him on the shoulder. "I don't want anyone feeling like they have to keep secrets for 8 hours of the day. Not on my watch." She got up and watched him go back to work before she left.

Yahiko found his concentration much improved. He narrowed his eyes at the camisole he'd hung earlier and moved it to the other side. _There. It was lighter, not darker. _He stood back and surveyed his work. _I can be just as much of a ninja here as back home, _he reminded himself. _I don't have to hide or stop being any part of myself. _

Another epiphany sprung upon him from nowhere, and Yahiko wondered why he hadn't thought of it before. _I'm standing in the middle of Outfit Central. This is the perfect time to be looking for inspiration! _The next time he was called to restock discarded items from the changing room, he looked at each item carefully as he returned it to the rack. _Doesn't fit my figure. Too loose. Nice cut, but I don't think the color would go well with my hair. Ooh, that would go well with my hair. _Steadily, by thinking about what would work and what wouldn't in the clothes he handled, Yahiko built a wardrobe for his female form in his mind. _Yes! Now this is good! I love working here! _

**Sasori**

Several hours before Yahiko rediscovered his love of clothing and all things fashionable, Sasori tossed on his clothes without even noticing that he was doing so, grabbed his jacket and helmet, and held his motorcycle upright for several seconds. He was already hot inside his jacket, his heart was beating strongly, and he hadn't been able to concentrate all morning.

Deidara had noticed and followed him around all morning, obviously concerned for his best friend's well being. The blonde came to stand on the other side of the motorcycle. "Is something wrong? I mean, more wrong than before, hm?"

"I don't know what's causing this. Yes, it is worse than before. Why am I so frightened?" Sasori wondered. "I know I have to somehow return the price sheet Itachi copied today." Said sheet was like a flat piece of nearly molten iron in his pocket. His frayed attention had kept wandering back to it all morning. "That doesn't fully explain the nerves, though." The motorcycle's seat looked like worse than a bar of red-hot iron. Sasori really didn't want to get on it. In fact, he was hard pressed to think of a body part he wouldn't sacrifice in order to _not_ get on it. _What is wrong with me? I've never been a very anxious person. I've never even been very anxious about the success of something I really wanted to be successful in. If anything, I might have a bit of a problem with apathy. I've been shaking more in the past week than I've considered shaking in my entire life. Is the use of chakra messing with my head? Is it from being around Konan? _

_Or maybe nothing's wrong with me. _Konan had stolen from him, the succubus had nearly pulled his soul out of his body, the succubus _had_ done many other things he desperately did not want to think about to his soul before trying to pull it out of his body. In comparison, Sasori could not think of a single thing his boss had ever done which approached those levels of seriousness. _The past week has been demonstrably more dangerous than before. I'm not prone to becoming anxious over nothing, so if I do become anxious, there must be a reason for it. Perhaps I should trust my instincts. _

He replaced the kickstand and stepped back from the motorcycle. "In any case, I'm clearly not riding into work today." Sasori patted the motorcycle apologetically, remembering the day the racing bike had showed up. "I've run the distance from there to here before. If I'm on foot, I can shortcut through the woods, which cuts down on the distance. It takes about the same time as riding in normally does."

"Hm." Deidara looked thoughtful. "You freaked out over nothing on Saturday, yeah."

Sasori inhaled very quickly and loudly on reflex. He and Deidara looked at each other afterwards. "That could be related to how I'm feeling today," Sasori concluded. He remembered every hair on his body standing on end and his mouth becoming dry, all for no apparent reason. _Wait a minute, that was actually the _second _time I've reacted like that. The first would be when I ran from the shop, even though I had no real reason to fear him. _Sasori realized all of his mystery freakouts were related to his place of work. He wondered if these bursts of anxiety were like what Deidara experienced when the blond remembered his past. _Maybe I secretly was stressed out by the conditions and didn't know it. _

"They may not be for no reason," he told Deidara. The blond perked up, but then looked even more worried as he realized what Sasori was saying. "I never told anyone about the time I ran from the shop to here, because it involved me freaking out and nearly panicking while at the shop. I thought my boss would do...something. I didn't have anything exact in mind. That was after he tried to intimidate me into confessing that I stole something from him. I thought he might do something as punishment," Sasori recalled.

Deidara gulped. "Seriously? Damn…" His face formed a battleground for warring emotions. He bit his lip, as if to avoid saying something.

Sasori knew damn well what the blond was probably thinking. "You don't need to remind me," he said while holding up a hand. "You've always told me I shouldn't allow myself to be in such conditions. You were right. I don't have any clear reason to be afraid of him, so it is possible that the accumulated stress is getting to me now. If I could have, it would have been a good idea to take your advice." Sasori was ever so grateful that this very simple and effective method of resolving conflict was available to use. After several years of working to rid himself of unnecessary pride and many more years of thinking about doing so before that, he was proud to note that his last sentence only elicited a twinge of discomfort.

Deidara snorted. He tried not to sound too prideful, but he felt it all the same. "You could have, hm," he chided Sasori.

"No, I'm fairly sure whatever mysterious force placed us in our positions wouldn't have allowed that. I didn't have the self-awareness required to make that decision before the false memories ended," Sasori reminded his friend.

Deidara blinked. "Oh." He shook his head and reminded himself of the current topic of discussion. "Anyway, hm, you've got Laurie to back you up now, yeah. Do you have her number?"

Sasori reached for his phone with smooth mechanical movements. His mind was elsewhere. "That's a thought…" _Come to think of it, there's more to the shop than just being a terrible place to work. Have I told anyone besides Laurie about the bicycles? _Sasori checked his contacts list. "I do not. If I'm going to talk with someone at a distance, I generally use email."

Deidara opened his own contacts. "Email won't help you get an inside scoop on what he's doing, hm. Here it is."

While he entered that in, Sasori remarked aloud, "You know, ever since Konan appeared, I've started noticing some strange things around my place of work. The shop has some unusual phenomena going on. I have very good reasons to be more anxious than usual."

Deidara coughed. "W-what? What kind of things?"

Sasori wasn't sure how much he really wanted to reveal. He didn't have many firm conclusions to draw yet. "Have you seen lots of bicycles around town?" he asked instead. "Not being ridden. Just propped up in random places."

Deidara looked down. "I saw one that didn't look abandoned near one of the abandoned houses, yeah. I've seen some on sidewalks and street corners. Not a lot." His brows furrowed. "But, wait, why would a bike be left on a street corner, yeah?"

Sasori started to guide his motorcycle back to where he parked it. "The shop has a greater than usual quantity of bicycles around it," was the scrap of an explanation he fed Deidara. "I'm reluctant to say more, but that's what I've seen." The kid wisely kept his mouth shut and did not press for more. It warmed Sasori's heart to see that he'd matured over the past years, and Sasori was no longer overheated so that was a good thing.

Despite parking his motorcycle, and despite the morning not being very chilled, Sasori kept his jacket on. He reluctantly hung up the helmet, but he had a feeling he might need the tough leather. It would help him feel more protected, at any rate. His work jacket, however, was subject to debate. Sasori was unsure if he would need it. He hung it up too.

Deidara saw this and opened his mouth to ask a question, but closed his mouth when he couldn't think of a question to ask. Sasori shrugged. "It's that kind of day, apparently," he told Deidara. "I'll tell you what's happening after I find out."

"The shop's also where the succubus came to try to get you, so be careful, yeah," Deidara urged. "This is reminding me of how we felt heading out to fight her, yeah. I hope it doesn't turn into a fight, but I don't know anymore, do I?"

Sasori patted him on his head. "I'll look out for myself," he promised. "If worst comes to worst and the shop's turned into a portal to hell, there's only one thing I need to get from there. With Laurie's help, I should be able to get it."

"What, hm?"

"My tools."

.

Sasori's senses were on full alert as he walked slowly and silently toward the shop. He avoided roads, brushing aside the branches of encroaching trees instead. He had always appreciated the wilds that crept up on the neglected grounds of the shop for their fresh air, which provided such a contrast to the oily smells inside. Now, Sasori wondered if his ninja instincts had been expressing themselves even back then. The growth made him feel safer as well as cleaner.

He approached the edge of the terrible little road which led away from the shop and called Laurie. He picked up his speed on some long-buried instinct, scuttling along the side of the road. His abdominal cavity was tense and he could feel his heartbeat in it, but the feeling wasn't paralyzing. Deidara was absolutely correct. It was just like fighting the succubus.

Laurie answered after the second ring. "Hello?" she whispered.

Sasori was halfway to the rocky and sandy back parking lot. His heart sank. _Why is she whispering over the phone? _"What is he doing?" the engineer asked. Mission time was no time for niceties.

"Sasori?" she whispered back. "He's not doing anything. I mean _anything._ He looked like he was thinking of something else when I clocked in, and now… He looks...composed."

_Oh shit. _Sasori narrowed his eyes and composed his thoughts. _Objectives: I need to get my tools to fix the broken tricycle, and I need to return the price sheet so he can't reasonably charge me with anything. That means I need to get to my work space and get into his office. Both places are under supervision, and I must avoid being caught at all costs. How can I do this?_

"Sasori?"

He relaxed and remembered that his was not a solo mission. "Yeah. I was just thinking. I have a tricycle that needs fixing, so I need my tools. I also need to return the list of materials to his office. I have strings, so I could do both from a distance, but I would need at least a window to see what I was doing, and it would take some time." The small window in his own space was on nearly the opposite side of the room from his drawers where he kept the bike tools, and the couple of windows he had seen in the boss' office were very visible from the door.

There was silence on the other end of the line. He knew Laurie would need more time than he would to come up with a plan, so he crept up to the parking lot while he waited. "Oh, fuck me," he hissed involuntarily.

"What?"

"There's another customer back here too." Sasori rubbed a hand down his face. "I can control machines with my strings, so I can get it, but that's a third thing I have to do. I am going to have some _very_ harsh words with these things when I get back."

He heard Laurie quietly sigh on the other end of the line. "You could come back," she advised. "I don't think anyone can blame you for taking a while to fix them if you have to sneak around like this to do it."

Sasori nodded. "Getting him and getting my tools would require the manager to stay out of my space for too much time. I can't ask you to stall for that long in one shot. He is trespassing into my space, isn't he?"

"Yup."

"How often? And how often is he in his own office?"

The phone beeped, and Sasori saw that the call had been ended. He turned his ringer to vibrate and kept his phone in his hand as he snuck around the side of the building. Regardless of what she found, he would need a dependable and quick way around. He found one. Thanks to the rocky soil, there were a lot of trees that were too small and scrubby to be called such, and only grass had gotten a foothold, and not much of one. He had cover and would not make obvious rustling sounds, though the unhealthy grass was just enough to muffle his footsteps. Sasori skittered quickly through the sparse cover around to the office windows. His feet adjusted better than he would have expected to the rocky ground. _Maybe Other Me lived somewhere rocky. I should ask. _

After crouching there for five minutes, trying to see through the windows, Sasori's phone vibrated. "Report."

"Sorry for cutting you off; he came to check on me. I watched for a while after that. He looked at the clock when he stopped by my desk, and he's poking his head into your place a lot more. He's impatient. Good time to go for his office."

"Can you keep an eye on him now?"

"Yeah."

"Wait for him to go into his office, and then leave. As soon as he leaves and starts poking into my place again, I'll go."

Sasori kept the phone to his ear while he took out the price sheet from his pocket and unfolded it with his strings. _Huh. I don't need to attach different strings to different parts of it, like I would if it was real string. My chakra just roots itself in or something; I can control the whole thing with one string. I've been wondering about that. _He could sneak the paper in and unfold it with only one string. Presumably, he would be able to do the same with the bicycle as well. _First Deidara, now sapient bicycles. What is it with people and asking me to take care of them? _He could have chosen not to. He could have told Deidara he had no interest in being personal friends when the kid waved at him a week after the accident. He could leave this one behind in the parking lot. He could...but then what would he do? Sasori's eyes softened as he remembered Rusty. _That cat… Something about taking care of him just got me into the habit, I guess. Or maybe it's a way to remember him. He was such a good cat. _

"Door's opening," Laurie whispered. "...Now!"

Sasori propelled himself quickly over the short distance between the trees and the side of the building, hesitated, and ran up the building's side. One string caused the window's latch to open itself. He peered in. _I have the paper. All I need is a tack or something. _He made a note to kick himself for not having brought one later. _Oh thank goodness. Good to see he manages _something_ sensibly. _A small number of tacks were kept embedded in the board where they would be used. Sasori sent in two strings to tack the paper onto the board in approximately its former position. Then he closed the window and made it latch itself. "Got the paper back in place. Now, can you get him away from my window for five to ten seconds?"

"I'll try." The amount of ambient noise on the other end increased, and there was the sound of much shuffling. She had apparently turned her phone on speaker and put it in her pocket. Sasori heard her approach and innocently ask the boss what he was so concerned about. There was worryingly little response, so she escalated to asking him if she could help. She didn't have anyone in right now, so surely it was alright to take five minutes to help~?

Sasori smirked from his position beyond the edges of the back lot and stifled a snort. Predictably, a tirade started on the other end of the line. Silently, because he couldn't afford to give her part in this away (_I could never forgive myself if I did_), he held out a hand and used five strings to pick up the damaged bicycle and drag it back to him through the air. In less than four seconds, he had it safely behind him and also under cover.

Sasori took a deep breath and let it out slowly, before holding the phone to his ear and listening to the rest of the tirade. After listening to a few seconds of it, he turned his phone on speaker and pressed the Record button on the app he used for that. _It sounds so much harsher now than it ever did before. _Sasori wasn't going to enjoy going back over his recordings now that he knew who "front desk girl" was and how strong she could be. _I can't post something that terrible on a comedy website, either. What was I thinking? _He felt a little sick. _I didn't think about how she was affected beyond a little bit of token sympathy, oh isn't it a shame, that sort of thing. If I had, I would have gotten the hell out of here sooner and taken him down with me. _His tear ducts felt warm. _I was wrong. Self-awareness isn't all I needed to think of doing something. Even when I had those false memories, if I'd thought of people besides myself, I could've done it. Deidara was still right. _

He closed his eyes and lifted his fingers, which still held the damaged bicycle in their strings. Slowly, Sasori began to walk away from the hellhole his preferred job had turned into. _And even now, I'm asking her to go through it all again, just for me. And I'm not doing anything. _His whole eyes felt warm. _I'm sorry. But what good does that do? _

He stepped over a log, absentmindedly lifting the bicycle as well. It had been only a few minutes of chewing her out for being a useless ditz, how she was never to leave her desk again, how dare she step outside her job to poke her shabby little nose into business that wasn't hers, etc., but that was long enough. He was relieved to stop recording. He sat down on the log and laid the bicycle down on the grass, waiting for Laurie to come back.

The ambient noise decreased. There was some more shuffling, then: "Sasori?" It was more than a whisper; it was a _pained_ whisper. Even if he was nominally in her corner, knowing that could only do so much when she had to face the boss' anger alone. Sasori closed his eyes and tried to ignore how moist they had gotten.

"I'm sorry." His eyes prickled to say that. It didn't sound like enough.

"Huh? For what?" Her voice was beginning to recover.

Sasori swallowed to settle his stomach. "I never really thought before. I wanted to post his voice on a comedy website because it's just so over the top, in a 'glad that's not me' sort of way. I never thought about who _was _on the other end of that. I wasn't curious about who 'front desk lady' was. If he hadn't taken that day off, and your happiness hadn't caught my attention, I still wouldn't…" His voice threatened to crack.

"Hey…" Laurie tried her best to be soothing. "Did you get the bike?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'll call you if he gets mad enough to storm out and take the rest of the day off, or something." Her voice gained strength. "Do it. Post his voice somewhere for people to laugh at. That's one of the best things you could do with it. Make him laughable." She chuckled. "Don't forget, I don't know anything about machines. You do. You're my way out of here."

Sasori opened his eyes, blinked them clear, and looked down at the damaged bicycle. Its chains were broken. _In human, that translates to torn ligaments, or maybe tendons. Whatever it is that muscles pull on to move. _"Yeah. I could show you how to oil and polish them, and you could put the finishing touches on them. I don't know if that matters, but I could." _Do they have feelings?_

"Maybe." Her voice dropped to a whisper again. "I'll call." _Beep. _

Sasori closed his eyes and placed his phone in his pocket. _I can still do something to make up for it. _He relaxed his shoulders and promised that he would, whatever that meant.

He stood the bicycle up and carried it beside him, just barely keeping its wheels off the ground to keep the chain from turning. He looked at it with a growing sense of anger when he could see the woods thin out in the distance. "You," he told it, "are going to be the last bicycle I ever pick up from that hellhole. I am not doing that anymore."

The bicycle was silent. Sasori looked forward again. "Glad we had this talk."

.

**A/N: As Yahiko well knows, knowing something and reeeeaaallly understanding it aren't the same thing. Reason #1 why epiphanies don't solve everything: in order to truly understand a thing, many parts of you must be convinced, and an epiphany is capable of convincing only one of those parts. This is not why I started writing that part of the chapter, but I don't remember the original reason so let's just pretend I intended to be making all kinds of points in this one. Sure. I totally meant to have a contrast between his work situation and Sasori's, too! It definitely wasn't a question of the next scene being a full chapter length in and of itself so I didn't want to include it, and then I had to name the chapter after what I did include. **

**Yeah, I'm looking forward to publishing next chapter. Next chapter contains oodles of my favorite activity! What is it? I've already said what my favorite activity is! I just didn't say it with my real-life voice. Remember, I exist in the story as well, not just in these notes...**

**I have no idea if anyone bothers keeping track of my story enough to know what I'm hinting at when I leave notes like this, but it amuses me all the same. **

**Now on to a completely different topic: Hey guys I found this awesome thing on Reddit! Technically I found it on TVTropes, because I do not use or look at Reddit, but the super cool awesome story I found is posted on Reddit. It's titled Humans Don't Make Good Pets. It's about some human guy who gets abducted, and then adopted, and it turns out Earth is a deathworld to nearly all of the aliens, which leads to interesting interactions. The narrator's really funny too. The story seems to be part of a Humanity Is Awesome themed collection of stories. I stayed up really late last night binge reading it, finally got myself to stop halfway through, and regard it as a testament to my devotion to this story that I got out of bed this morning at such an early time (earlier than I usually wake up!). Getting up earlier than usual is actually a staple of staying up really late. I don't know why. I've heard sleep deprivation can make kids hyperactive?**

**Check out cool story, eagerly anticipate the next chapter, listen to birds... Man my schedule is crammed. (Blatant lie) See yall next week!**


	54. Philosotainment

**A/N: My favorite activity is of course... Categorizing! Yay!  
**

**I've completely given up on Project "Give Ruta some personality traits that I don't have." It just isn't happening. From now on, I will mention it in one of these notes if Ruta does something I WOULDN'T do. Notice how this note contains no such mentions.**

**Philosotainment is a term coined by Scott Adams in his book _Stick To Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!_ which is defined as thinking about philosophical stuff just for the entertainment value of it. It is very fun. I recommend it highly. This story is already chock full of it and it's only been a little over a week.**

**Extra special omake today!**

**.**

**Konan**

_I did not know it was possible to have this much physical contact with someone without any further meaning behind it. _

Hidan was expected to disobey social convention, but lying in her lap and nuzzling her stomach like this was seriously testing her expectations of what was proper. Oddly enough, it didn't feel bad, or that kind of good either. She had the urge to hold him closer, as if physical contact of this closeness was something she missed.

He purred into her stomach, sending deep and pleasant vibrations through her lower abdominal cavity. Any anxiety she might have held in her guts was washed away by this. He stopped purring briefly to look up at her. "Myow?"

She smiled down at him. "Am I occupying your time, or are you occupying mine?"

He grinned up at her. "Ah, who cares?"

Konan scratched him behind one ear and reminded herself of how good it was that nobody else stayed during the weekdays. _This is very pleasant. And yet… _Her eyes roamed downwards to his exposed chest. _And yet, something feels wrong. I can't have quite that kind of relationship with him. I can be tremendously loyal and enjoy his company very much, but not in that way. _Her attention returned to his face. _Is that unusual? Granted, there are a great many complicating factors..._

He turned his head to the side suddenly and licked the palm of her hand. She froze, unable to explain why the hell anyone would do that. He kept going, working his jaws around her fingers and softly biting down. She was about to ask him what this was when she remembered that he acted like a cat, and cats do not have hands to hold. _I would rather he not lick my hands, but I suppose I can wait to have a word with him. _His eyelids fluttered in drowsy happiness, and he kicked his bare feet at the sunroom's soft carpet.

Konan's eyes darted down to his bare chest again. "Hidan?" His eyes half-opened. "I've been wondering ever since this morning. Why are you not wearing your cloak? I don't see your scythe with you either."

Hidan's eyes fully opened. "Um…" He looked down. "I've had a kinda busy morning. Deidara had a nightmare that felt like being on fire, bad enough that I didn't think of grabbing anything. I got back, checked on you, went back to sleep, and then something was hilarious. I had to get there before the joke was over, you know. And then, there was no point, because wearing the cloak would get in the way of this and I can't have my thing on my back when I'm lying down. It would be nice to just have it nearby, though," he admitted.

Konan nodded and created a paper clone. Hidan sighed wistfully at the clone's back as it left. "You got to teach me shit like that. All I've got are images. Nothing solid."

She blinked. "You can use the basic Clone Jutsu?"

"Mhm. Is that a deal?" he asked.

She tilted her head and ran her thumb over his cheek again. "Well, not a large one. I did teach it to Yahiko and Nagato, who you talk to quite often. I shouldn't be surprised."

Hidan held the hand that was caressing his cheek. "I didn't learn it from them." His brows furrowed. "I just needed something to chase the deer with that time when you asked for 'em, so I fiddled around with my chakra and my hands until I got a technique that worked." He demonstrated this 'fiddling'. "Like this -" He pressed his hands together and twisted them in various configurations, none of which were hand signs. He frowned in concentration. "And my chakra felt like…" There was a release of chakra, and an image of Hidan stood above them both. "Yeah, that's how it felt like."

Konan blinked up at the clone. "You can make up a jutsu on the basis of what your chakra feels like?" _With no knowledge of hand signs? _

"Yeah, like walking on walls," Hidan explained. "It's a part of our bodies, right? Like muscle? You just go by what your muscles feel like when you walk and shit. No thinking."

Konan closed her mouth and restored her composure. "Chakra is not used as much as muscles are, so no one has the same level of control over their chakra as they do their muscles. The vast majority of people," she corrected herself. _There is no such thing as all or none in nature. _"The vast majority of people learn hand signs to help them."

"Like what I did!"

"No, those hand configurations may have helped, but in a messy, unrepeatable way." Konan explained, "In order to use jutsu, there are a limited amount of official hand signs that people can learn combinations of, like a recipe."

Hidan huffed. "Fuck that! Who the fuck wants to tie their hands up when they're in the middle of a fight?"

Konan shrugged. "It is necessary. Even those with great chakra control, such as medical ninjas, still use hand signs for elemental jutsus. They may only need one or two where a beginner ninja would need all of the signs, but signs are still required to organize chakra in complex ways."

Hidan stuck his tongue out. "Bullshit. Don't like that shit." He turned away and batted at the clone's leg, dispersing it. He then snorted at a wisp of fog that got too close to his face. "That way of using chakra doesn't feel natural. I like using it like any other body part better. I don't like doing things that feel forced and weird."

"That explains why your original specialized in taijutsu and weapons," Konan murmured. "It is your right to fight that way. Others may do things differently."

Hidan yawned. "Mm." He turned to nuzzle his face into the crook between her leg and hip again. The paper clone came back and laid his scythe down to Konan's right, just beyond his head. He mumbled something that might have been thanks. Konan could sympathize with that. After hearing his description of his morning activities, it sounded like he was already well into the afternoon on his own schedule. Konan imagined she would feel the same in the afternoon. She didn't like that she would, as it effectively disqualified her from being able to train properly or carry out most kinds of missions, but she had to face reality all the same. At least, at her current rate of chakra regeneration, she would be fully functional soon. Hopefully she could push herself into the early evening, or further. There was, as always, far too much to do today.

Speaking of which… Hidan took his head away and blinked. "Feeling kind of nervous all of a sudden," he reported. "Is that you?"

Konan shook her head no. "Does it feel distinct?" She hoped it was someone like Deidara so she didn't have to get up and leave Hidan on the bare carpet.

"Yeah," he answered. "Kind of nervous, kind of curious, like seeing something new. If I don't focus my thing can pick up shit for the length of that middle hallway, so it could be coming from the front door."

Konan sighed and gently lifted Hidan's head as she got up, placing it down on the carpet. He started to snore as she held it, so there was a limit to how uncomfortable he could be. She instructed the paper clone to look after him with a glance. The clone nodded.

.

"Sakumo?" Konan put her kunai away upon seeing who was at the front door.

The white-haired wolf ninja nodded. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail and he was wearing more of what she had come to recognize as casual wear. "Hello! It's good to see you're well. This is Ruta." The man next to him, who was shorter and boyish-looking with ragged brown hair, smiled and waved with much exuberance.

Konan recalled what Kisame had said. "Ah. Yes. Kisame mentioned you." She stepped back and welcomed them in. "He said you were interested in categorizing."

"Yes!" Ruta looked around excitedly. "I…" He panted, and his face suddenly switched to downcast. "I don't know where to start."

Konan smiled. "I'm sure you'll find a place to begin soon enough."

Sakumo lowered his head. "So, ah, how are you doing? Kisame seemed concerned."

"He was," Konan stated bluntly. "And with good reason." She did not frown, but would have if she'd been more expressive. _What more can I say? Where would I even begin? _Ruta wasn't the only one overwhelmed.

Sakumo continued to look down, not meeting her eyes, which she was grateful for. "Whatever it is, I'd like to help, if I can," he offered.

She nodded back. "I've heard things about the value of interacting with animals." Now to get away from her least favorite topic… "Anyway," she turned to Ruta, who was running a hand along the still-unrepaired crack in the wall, "I have a couple ideas for a starting point. Would you like to begin with the qualities of chakra itself, before we discuss anything about jutsu?"

Ruta jumped. "Yes!" He sighed. "I have to say, ever since Kisame said that there are some things only individual body parts can do, like eyes, that's what has stuck with me the most. I can wait, though. I can wait." He took deep breaths. "Alright." He walked over to the lobby desk and opened the laptop he had been carrying under one arm. "I can do this. I can do this."

Konan watched him whisper to himself as he opened blank pages. _He's nervous. And in the habit of touching things and whispering to himself. Very excitable. Messy looking, as if he doesn't tend to himself regularly. Has trouble organizing his thoughts. _Overall, he was a strange sort of person to be a shinobi, and much better prepared to be a civilian. She wondered how his original had fared in a career path so unsuited to his nature.

He ran his fingers along the keyboard, accidentally pressing keys as he did so. _Is he running his fingers into the edges of them for the feeling? _She decided to ignore his oddities. As long as his tactile urges did not extend to her person, she had no quarrels with him.

"Perhaps it would be better to discuss this in the kitchen. Someone moved a table in there for a card game," she recalled. "It's just down the right hallway, on the left. Excuse me while I find out where they got the table from."

She sighed as she walked to the opposite end of the lobby to check the room there. The tiger man's enjoyment of touching reminded her of Hidan and the excellent time she had been having with him until just now. Could they not have come at a more convenient time, when she was more interested in the theoretical and the shinobi life? She threw open the door to the adjoining room a little too strongly. It opened on a large maintenance closet. No table here.

She turned and stalked down the left hallway to the sunroom's counterpart on the opposite side of the building. This room also had a nice window and some carpeting, although the window wasn't as large and the carpeting wasn't as fluffy. This room wasn't much use as a sunroom since it faced the morning sun, which disappeared faster than the afternoon sun did, and it was more heavily shaded by trees. It was a perfectly pleasant room for relaxing in, though. Konan did not think of this as she scanned the room for a table. She would have rather been in the sunroom, which this room was not. The annoyance of that was enough to make her think of this room coldly.

The room had a couch and a table. She kidnapped the table. It looked similar to the one used for card games, and was relatively clear of dust in comparison to the rest of the neglected room. She filed that away for further thinking later. The layout of this building really made very little sense, although it was convenient. _Too convenient? _

She heard laughter coming from the kitchen well before she reached it. _Of course. His feelings of excitement must have woken Hidan. _Was it a good thing or a bad thing that Ruta had shaken Hidan from his nap? She wasn't sure how Hidan prioritized his sleep.

"You obviously think and can do things, so do you remember shit?" she heard Hidan ask. "I mean, does your mind like mix with hers, or is it separate, or how the fuck do you work?"

Konan entered the room with her burden to see Hidan addressing the paper clone, who stared at him passively. "Clones made from a material don't do that," she answered while passing the table to her clone. "They are like Deidara's clay animals. As you saw, his spiders can explode themselves and search places he can't see, but that doesn't make them alive. She's just paper animated by my will."

"Holy crow," Ruta breathed. "You mean a golem? You can make golems out of things, and disguise them as yourself?" His eyes sparkled. "Oh man, oh man, oh man," he repeated as he opened yet another blank document. He typed at the top, **Cross References With Other Forms Of Power.** Beneath that, he typed, _Chakra can be used to make golems, animate things with user's will. _"This is so much! So how does this work? Can it only be used on nonliving objects? How many different materials? Is it possible to give them more or less of a mind? You said clones made from material - are there nonmaterial ones?"

Konan allowed herself to wince. _Poor man. This is overwhelming him. He doesn't sound able to process this amount of information. _She pitied him.

Ruta giggled and sat back on a counter for .5 seconds before jumping up and pacing. "What would a golem with a full mind even look like? Does it qualify as a golem if it's not made of a material? If they're called clones, does that mean they have to look like their creator? If some of them can have minds, that has so many ethical implications!" He trailed off into a wide-eyed grin, his eyes darting about the ceiling.

"I am so fucking focused right now," Hidan whispered urgently. "So much thinking is happening. It feels so fucking good." He looked around, did not find a pen, left the room, came back with a pen, and proceeded to write on his arm. "Give me a sec, I got plans to make. _So much focus._"

Konan walked over to Sakumo. Hidan's writing reminded her of her burst of manic energy last week, which had given him a similar urge. She searched his eyes for signs of danger, but saw none. Ruta, too, was occupied with creating a list of other forms of power chakra could relate to. "Is this normal?" she whispered to Sakumo.

He whispered back, "No. Most of the time, he's aimless, or looking for something to interest him this way." Sakumo smiled. "Thank you. This is better than normal. Hopefully he'll be occupied with it for a long time."

Konan thought about the way her own attention bounced around when she decided to toss off her worries. "I hope so."

"Alright, I've got a list of just about everything I can think of," Ruta exclaimed. "Now I'll just go back and create a document for the qualities of chakra…" He titled another empty page **Qualities of Chakra** and listed beneath that:

**Uses**

**Forms**

**History**

**Relationships**

**Origins**

**Misc.**

"Alright!" He had yet to get around to sitting. Konan realized it would be better if there were chairs to go with the table and sent the clone out for some. "Now we can start."

"I'mma be at the training rooms. See yall," Hidan called on his way out the door.

Sakumo looked conflicted. Should he stay with his longtime friend and learn more about chakra, or go with Hidan and ask about Konan, running the risk that Hidan wouldn't answer and he'd miss something important for no reason?

Konan beckoned him over to the table. "Hidan is always happy to talk. There's no hurry," she told him. Sakumo stayed.

Ruta wriggled in his seat once he had a seat to sit in. "Okay, so, what can chakra do?"

.

**Qualities of Chakra**

**Uses: **Can be used as material or energy, manipulate other materials, create other materials or forms of energy, manipulate a person's soul/mind. In practice, this means it can do anything! Can also change the nature of reality itself, open portals to other dimensions, etc.

**Forms:** As energy: light, heat, kinetic, electric, chemical, and combinations. As material: plain chakra (liquid or solid, flexible, can be molded), or can take the form of any other material. When taking the form of another material, cannot be disturbed or it will lose consistency and break up. When itself, cannot hold still. Can be partially material and partially energy at the same time.

**History: **Great advancements were made in the use of chakra about 1000 years ago, leading to development of powerful techniques. Development still ongoing. State of knowledge before the discoveries of Sage of Six Paths unknown.

**Relationships: **Has great influence over the eyes. Presence of chakra fosters sentience in nonhumans. Human attitudes towards chakra are very conflicted. It is considered useful, but treated as a restricted military weapon, with most people not taught to use it at all. That's a damn shame!

**Origins:** Is spiritual in nature, & produced by the physical activity of living cells. Unclear whether law of conservation of energy is violated; chakra might be just another form of waste energy, like heat. Do ninjas produce normal body heat?

**Misc.: **Chakra clearly represents a departure from the known laws of physics. E = mc ^2 is false in that world. Chakra can even interact with other laws of physics! Spiritual origins + changes physics = is chakra God? If God, why not present in this world? Chakra allows hair to have strange colors; no idea why or how. Has influenced the course of evolution: ex. trees grow differently to accommodate animals being more dangerous. Raises so many existential and ethical questions, I have no idea how civilization resembles our own in any way.

.

Konan read over Ruta's shoulder as he edited his document. When he stopped typing and relaxed his shoulders, she asked, "What is that combination of letters?"

Ruta grinned. "That means energy equals matter times the speed of light squared. The speed of light squared is a really big number, so what it means is that a LOT of energy can be turned into only a very small miniscule amount of matter. If chakra obeyed this rule, a person's entire reserves of chakra should only be able to form into...maybe an ant? If chakra can take forms much bigger than that, this rule can't be true. E just equals m, or is maybe less than m! Just imagine, like a bucket -" He mimed holding a bucket, before flipping his hands to dump the bucket upside down. "That's what this does to the laws that govern how the universe works. How does your universe resemble ours? At all?"

Konan chuckled. "If chakra is a form of divine influence as you suggest, why not? If gods can influence a world directly, which they definitely can, why would they need laws to keep order in their stead?"

Ruta shook his head. "I've always reconciled my beliefs by thinking that the laws of physics are a product of the fact that gods exist, like how the presence of water in our cells is just a part of how we exist."

Konan shrugged. "Maybe this world and mine are in different parts of the gods' metaphorical body."

Sakumo finished running his hands through his hair. "Magic. That's it. That's what it has to be. It's changing some physics but not others, changing the world in some ways but not in other ways, even though there's no obvious barrier to prevent it from changing those other things… I'm just going to call it magic. We can leave the understanding of it to the philosophers."

"I'm not a philosopher. A philosotainer at best," Ruta objected. "Or...am I?"

"I believe Hidan would agree with you that people not being taught to use chakra is a damn shame," Konan told him. "Before you two arrived, he told me that he views chakra as a part of his body, and doesn't like formalized techniques and structures governing how it is used. That is not a common view in my world. I had not thought of chakra that way before."

Sakumo laid his forehead on the table and sighed. "Maybe it's time someone did, then. You know, I've practiced some of the things we've already learned we can do that normal people can't. Now that I know what to look for, I can feel it - something running through my muscles. Some things contracting in places I've never seen things in any drawing of the human anatomy. But it feels completely natural. I think he's right."

_In retrospect, I have noticed that none of the clones use formal names when they cast their jutsus. They just use their chakra, without labeling their usage of it. They already agree. _Konan kept silent. She had known, ever since Itachi explained so, that she would have to change some of the ways she thought. She had not expected she would have to change the way she thought about her own past life.

Ruta took a deep breath and didn't quite look up at Konan as he twisted his hands together. She sighed. "More documentation?" He nodded.

She looked at what he had so far. "Better have it all at once."

.

**Types of Techniques**

**Elemental** \- Can be broken down into 5 subcategories. Broadly: all people have chakra that tends towards at least one element. Some people have inheritable characteristics that make their chakra tend towards two or more elements, allowing them to use both in unique combinations. People can learn techniques of all of the 5 basic elements, although it takes much more effort and time to learn to use elements different from one's own. Nobody can learn the combination elements; they have to be inherited. People can make their chakra tend towards another element if they use enough techniques of that kind, but that doesn't allow them to use the combinations. The different elements have different characteristics that make them weak or strong against other elements. Elements have to be compatible in order to donate chakra, like blood type. Most battle techniques are elemental.

**Sub - Lightning: **Chakra of this type is very energetic. It can break up strong bonds, but risks dissipating entirely if its own weak bonds are disturbed. This makes it strong against Earth and weak against Wind. Chakra of this type is easy to transform into electric energy. Lightning techniques use a lot of chakra, but ignore most defenses, so they work really well against small numbers.

**Sub - Earth: **Chakra of this type is very tightly bonded. It repels all outside influence, but falls apart if not fully united, making it strong against Water and weak against Lightning. Earth techniques exert tremendous force and can literally move mountains, but they tend to be slow to use and lack delicate touches. Best used for shielding, preparing a place ahead of time, etc.

**Sub - Water: **Chakra of this type is flexible and accommodating. It swallows up other forms of energy but has no impact on anything it can't absorb, making it strong against Fire and weak against Earth. Thanks to being so flexible, this type of chakra is the best kind for a medical ninja. Water techniques can be highly controlled, but don't do much to defend or attack, and it's difficult to make them very big - a kind of jack of all trades. They also rely on water that's already in the environment. Best used in watery places.

**Sub - Fire: **Chakra of this type is very chaotic. Its power is based on its bonds being disorganized and choppy (the more disorganized the better), making it strong against Wind and weak against Water. This kind of chakra affects a very large area, making it ideal against large groups.

**Sub - Wind: **Chakra of this type is very sharp. It cuts through materials and can even chop up other forms of chakra, making it strong against Lightning and weak against Fire. Wind techniques are best used with a tool. These tools can either help shape the wind, or can have their sharp edges sharpened even more. Wind techniques work best at medium range and are the most generalized of all techniques since they can lend their sharpness to anything.

**Genjutsu - **Alters the mind of the receiver, making them perceive things that aren't there. Stronger genjutsu can take over the receiver's entire nervous system, paralyzing them and allowing them to be controlled. Minor genjutsu leaves most of what the receiver sees intact, whereas major ones usually take over the receiver's entire perception. Genjutsu can affect the mind in other ways, causing damage or sometimes healing someone's mind without affecting their body. Usually works best on individuals, but can be used on groups if that group is united.

**Medical - **Alters the tissues of the body. Mostly used to heal, but can be used to harm as well. Medical ninjas must have great control over their chakra, or else healing treatments can become harmful. Medical techniques mostly stimulate tissues of the body to grow and/or cause them to move.

**Sealing - **Seals are patterns written in a material that carries chakra. If chakra is pushed into a seal, the seal activates. Seals can be used for healing, teleportation, explosions, storage, and many other things. How seals work is known, but not by the people writing this document.

**Misc. - **Chakra can be used in a more general way to improve various qualities of other objects. It can sharpen weapons and parts of one's own body, give muscles greater strength or speed, help people walk on vertical surfaces and water, and can be projected from the body to give someone features they didn't have before, such as wings, claws, or an entire second skin. Chakra can also be used to turn something into something else, clone items or people, move things around, and project some part of a person's spirit beyond their body. Advanced techniques may split their soul entirely, or grab people's souls from heaven and bring them back to life. This isn't even getting into some techniques that may or may not be chakra-based.

.

All Konan could say after Ruta sat back this time was, "I can see why you believe chakra to be godlike." She had a feeling like they'd forgotten something, and the list was already more than she ever consciously thought about at once.

Sakumo cleared his throat. "Since our entire knowledge of what our originals could do is based on muscle memory, I vote we have further discussion on that miscellaneous category. Aside from what you know -" he was talking to Konan "- it's all we have." She agreed.

.

**Techniques That Can Only Be Used By Body Parts**

Some abilities are granted by individual body parts. These parts obviously have no mind of their own and require a person's chakra to be operational, but it does not matter who uses these body parts. Anyone with any kind of chakra can use these parts, and they will have the same effect every time. They can even be swapped!

**Sharingan - **A special eye that only people descended from the Uchiha clan can develop. The iris is replaced by a red iris with black markings. The black markings form a circle with little commas in it. This is what the first form of the Sharingan looks like. Each basic Sharingan can have up to 3 commas. The basic form gives its bearer quicker reflexes, faster perception, and enhanced perception of details and spatial relations. Someone with the Sharingan can see little cues in another person's movements that allow them to predict an attack before it comes, and dodge things that would otherwise be too fast to dodge. Sharingans can be sacrificed to get their bearer out of certain death. The basic form is unlocked during strenuous battle.

**Sub - Mangekyo Sharingan: **The second and, as far as we know, most advanced form of the Sharingan. This form grants a small number of very specific abilities. The specific ability a Mangekyo grants depends on unknown factors. Likely suspects include who uses them and who they came from. The authors of this paper are not able to say anything for certain. The only Mangekyo Sharingans we know of are one set that can be used to set things on fire and project a very powerful illusion, one eye that opens a portal into another dimension at the user's will, and another eye that also opens a portal to another dimension (very suspicious). More research is needed. Unfortunately, more research is not likely to happen, because the Mangekyo can only be unlocked by watching someone die.

**Rinnegan - **A special eye that is so rare, we only know of one person alive who has it, and two people who have _ever_ had it. Nothing is known to the authors of this paper about where this eye comes from, who can develop it, or how to unlock it. Everything except the pupil is replaced by a purple ringed pattern, resembling ripples. The Rinnegan has seven sets of powers. Set One can manipulate attractive and repulsive forces in defiance of any other force, and generate black rods from the arms. Set Two can absorb all chakra. Set Three can summon any being that has a black rod in its body without that being's consent. Set Four can touch people's souls in order to read their minds or pull the soul from their body. Set Five can fire missiles from any part of the body. Set Six can summon a giant mouth which only its targets can see; this giant mouth can kill targets by pulling their life force from their body, or bring bodies and/or machines back to life and perfect repair. Set Seven can control spirits, of the person with these eyes and of other people. It can possess dead bodies through the black rods and give each of them one of the other sets of power, bring dead people back to life (but only as long as they have not made it all the way into the afterlife), and integrate all the bodies into a spiritual network centered on the original eye-bearer, who is able to see everything the possessed bodies see and control them all at once. Set Seven can only be used by the original eye-bearer (or at least it would be a really bad idea to try anything else, so let's not).

**Byakugan - **A special eye that can only be naturally developed by members of the Hyuga clan. The pupil and iris are plain white, as if the person was blind. This eye can see over the full sphere of angles around someone's body, with a really long radius. Exact distance unknown. It can also see through any unaltered material substance and perceive chakra. Interactions with genjutsu unknown. A generalist eye, very helpful for anything I can imagine (medicine, surveying, just looking for things, etc.) I really like this one! It's so much more useful than the others.

**Cells - **There have been experiments performed with the cells of a man who had a powerful ability, trying to transplant those cells into the bodies of others. These efforts have reportedly been successful, with a least one person manifesting the same ability after being so experimented on. The ability in question was one of those mixed-element bloodline abilities. The name's obviously a misnomer if any cell will do. This would raise a ton of possibilities regarding how to spread the limited abilities to a wider population, except that the experiments killed everyone else who was tested, and the survivor's mastery might come from him fully incorporating those cells, as he was a child at the time. Effects of cell transplant on adults: unknown.

.

"Well, that was depressing," Sakumo summarized.

Everyone agreed. Konan exhaled slowly through her nose. "Even so, and even if it is also impractical, it's best to not discard knowledge. The idea that individual cells, even those taken from a dead body, can hold their owner's power is an interesting one to know."

Ruta grimaced. "A _dead guy? _What - who - _necrotic tissues?_"

Konan looked at him. "Of course. Presumably, they were not necrotic at the time. Medical jutsu can do many things."

Ruta continued to grimace. Sakumo asked, "What's this part that's described as 'very suspicious'? One eye and one eye makes perfect sense to me; that's how many eyes people naturally have."

"Yes, but I can't explain it." Konan tilted her head in thought. "One of the men with that Mangekyo was not an Uchiha, so he could only have received the eye from someone else. The other man with the other eye is an Uchiha and could have unlocked it naturally; however, as far as I know, there is no link between them that could explain why he would have donated his other eye, if that is what happened. Either they both took an eye from someone else, or there is a link that I don't know about. The second man is an incredibly suspicious person who I have always collected information on, so possible information about his background is automatically deserving of investigation."

"Just to be sure who's who," Sakumo said, "there's one guy who definitely had an eye transplant, and you want to know who he got it from. The most likely suspect is another guy with a matching eye, but he's all mysterious and shadowy, and it doesn't seem like he would be that charitable just from the goodness of his heart."

"No." _Definitely not charitable. What use would charity be, in his worldview? _"He convinced Nagato and I to accept his worldview as the truth and take orders from him for some time. In his worldview, there is no place for charity, no need for it. If he did in the past do this, then his worldview was once different, which…" Her hand tightened. "Well, he was responsible for my death so I already know he was a bastard, but… Just how much were we tricked?"

The two Hatakes remained silent. Had either of them put two and two together before to realize she must have been present at her own death? Konan would find time to wonder that later, after she finished asking herself why she had said so much. _Why did I tell them that much? What happened to propriety? I have the power to; I ought to keep my tongue in check. Even the people who have reasons to want to know about my personal life are unhappy when I tell them. It's wrong to force something so personal on strangers who have no reason to want to hear it. _

"Why?" Ruta whispered, so lowly that it wasn't clear it was a question at first. "Why…" He looked away, shutting his mouth.

_Really? Is he not offended? He wants to know more? _Konan was astounded once again at the bravery shown by people of this world. How could they stand to lower their personal boundaries that far? She had to know. Gently, she laid a hand on Ruta's shoulder. "Finish that question." She tried not to make it sound like an order, but privately Konan knew she would go to some measures to make him finish if he refused.

Ruta looked up, his wide eyes blinking with innocent confusion. "Well…" He started, but then hesitated. He looked unsure if he was really allowed to ask. _On the other hand, I know a grand total of a dozen extraordinary people. Maybe this level of disclosure is above normal. That would explain his hesitation. _She nodded to reassure him that yes, she really _did_ want to know what he had been asking about. _What could he have wanted to know about my past? Nobody else seems at all willing to ask. Why is he? _

Ruta meshed his fingers together and fiddled with them nervously. "I don't mean to insult you," he began. "I know things look different from different perspectives, and you did what looked right from yours, and all that. But, speaking from just my _own_ perspective, I don't really understand what you said about accepting his worldview as the truth." He looked up at her more confidently. "A worldview can't be truth. I don't know if truth even exists. I pay a lot of attention to my mind and my thinking, so I've seen how worldviews are. Things seem so solid one hour, and then they don't even exist the next. No worldview can ever last. Nothing in it is really, verifiably real. So, why did you think his was real?"

Konan blinked at him. Her face was still. Inside, her mind was very busy. _That's just what I said only a couple days ago! _He seemed to be expecting a response, so she stalled for time. "No offense taken. I have thought the same myself."

He relaxed. "Really?"

Konan nodded. "But there are some things that do last," she remembered. "Traps of the mind, which fix parts of the mind in place and prevent them from changing. We refused his first offer, but accepted later, after we had become caught in such a trap. If you are trapped long enough and solidly enough, I remember disbelieving that it was possible for what I felt to ever change. My memories of previous change didn't look real." _Why the hell am I telling them this much? I do not even know them. _She sighed and stood up. "Lies are the most convincing truths," she said. Now _that_ should be a proverb.

Ruta's shoulders slumped. "Oh…" He looked very sad at the thought.

Sakumo was looking down at the table and looked like he was going to keep looking there for a long time. "I know that," he murmured. "Like my son…"

Konan's eyes widened. It was surprising that they would want to share in return, instead of getting away from this uncomfortable topic like she had expected. But more importantly, _his son? Kakashi? The demon boy? _"You have a son?" she asked. _Be gentle, be cautious, avert your eyes… _These were good tips for stalking certain kinds of prey.

The wolf man was silent. He took his hands back and placed them in his lap. Ruta's eyes were wide, and he made neither sound nor movement. Konan could find nothing wrong with her technique, so she guessed there was no gentle way to approach this. She opened her mouth to back up and tell him he need not respond, when he said, "No," in a broken voice. He swallowed. "Never did."

_That's...interesting… _The broken edges of his voice sent tingles up her spine as it made her think of prey. Konan bit down on the sudden urge to laugh and tease him for more, watch him squirm in pain. She had a firm enough grasp this time to be horrified at herself. _No! I need to get away from him. _"My apologies. I think it's a good time to leave the both of us to our thoughts. I will go check on Hidan." She left the room post haste, her hands starting to shake and her head spinning. The thwarted desire was making its displeasure known. Her teeth ground together of their own accord before she made her jaw relax. _Hidan will make this better. Hidan will make this better. _She had called out for him to help that same night, hadn't she? Now he could.

She found Hidan looking at his arm outside the training room with the targets, his cloak and scythe on and a bag of something at his feet. He groaned as she approached. "It doesn't stretch this far. Lost the focus," he grumbled. Then his eyes narrowed. "Shiiiiiiit." He suddenly flattened himself against the wall as if trying to hide there.

Konan recognized the same avoidance in herself. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. _I will not be afraid of myself. No one is around; this is the perfect time to confront myself. _Anger wasn't great, but it was leagues above mindless retreat. _Just what the hell is doing this to me? _She tightened her right hand into a fist, stabbing her nails into her palms. That, too, was leagues above retreat, though she wasn't sure if it was better or worse than anger.

When she opened her eyes, Hidan had unflattened himself from the wall. He nearly snarled as he said, "Give me a sec." He closed his eyes and once more allowed everything to vanish. He lost focus but the anger disappeared, allowing him to come out on top of it when he regained his focus. "Okay," he said, having gained temporary control of the feelings forced upon him. "Now I can ask. What is it?"

Konan explained that her discussion with the two Hatakes had gotten into painful territory, causing Sakumo to reveal something hurtful. She then told him the complete story of what had happened last time she sensed weakness and hurt in Sakumo. Both times, she refrained from describing what the vulnerability was, out of fear her impulses would return.

Hidan thanked whatever it was for the clear-headedness which allowed him to think about what she was saying. "Seriously?" he asked. "I've never seen that, and Deidara's been vulnerable some times, as well as some other people being uncomfortable. I've never felt like this though."

Konan shuddered. "You're different. To be a member of the Akatsuki, your originals had to be much, much stronger than the typical shinobi," she explained. "You may not be your originals, but I still wouldn't dare."

Hidan looked at his hands. "I have felt kinda predatory around you and Sunshine together…"

"He's different," she repeated. "From the rest of the Akatsuki, I mean." _So just because he doesn't have their level of battle power, I'm willing to treat him like a captured rabbit? _Konan couldn't believe what she was saying. _How can I feel that way toward him? I care about him! Don't I? _She remembered often feeling like attacking something after being in too-close quarters with Yahiko. _What is wrong with me? _

Hidan shuddered too and struggled to regain his control. "Yeah, um… I got rocks." He held up the bag at his feet. "I got distracted by thinking of helping you and Moonlight. You had to search for some rocks yesterday, and didn't get a lot done…"

Konan swallowed. _I'm forcing this on him, and on myself too. Stop it! _She reminded herself that things weren't always what they seemed, often didn't make sense, etc. She had to have faith that her feelings toward Yahiko made sense in some way, and that she would eventually figure it out. "Thank you."

Hidan regained his control and pulled his sleeve down. "Yeah, um…" He peeked. "Right! Thing number one: training. I almost cut my leg off, so I thought I should control this thing better." He patted the top blade of his scythe. "Maybe you could come out and tell me how Other Me allegedly used rope, yet my control of the rope sucks so much."

Konan agreed, mostly for the excuse to take a closer look at his scythe. _Where did his original get it from? _After seeing it in action, she had no doubt the weapon could not have come from an ordinary weapons shop.

.

**A/N: I, of course (how could anyone not) have decided to ****entirely ****disregard the "reveal" that chakra is only 1000 years old. The Sage of Six Paths is still important, and he still had the Rinnegan, but it's my personal headcanon that he was just the first to make serious advances in the usage of chakra that led to the creation of ninjutsu as it is today. He's basically a chakra scientist to me. Prior to him, chakra existed and was used, but it was not used in very complex ways like ninjutsu is in the present. Nobody in this story can know it, but their use of the Misc. category of jutsu as part of their ordinary lives and NOT as special military stuff is basically what was going on before the Rikudo Sennin did what he did. There had to be a huge overhaul in the way chakra was used and everything, like how Einstein overhauled our understanding of physics and what that was good for.  
**

**I have** _always_ **known what was going on with Kakashi. Of course I know the backstory of the main protagonist for one of my stories! I really should get out more chapters of his story. It'll probably take forever in this story's timeline to get around to revealing what's going on whereas it would come up much easier and more naturally in my other story, but I publish this fic faster than I publish _Demons_. So I am as curious as anyone else on the subject of which story is going to reveal what's going on first. **

**Believe it or not, this already-long chapter gets an omake. I could save it for a later chapter, but then nobody would be able to appreciate the joke in the last sentence. It has to come now. **

**Origins of the Red Scythe**

Original Hidan cracked his neck, bending it back and forth as he walked into some little town in the Land of Water where he hopefully would not be recognized. The sensation of cracking his neck seemed completely and utterly foreign after the ordeal he'd been through over the weekend. The worst of it had faded fast to allow him to remember his previous life, but it still felt so _real_. He doubted it would ever fade as much as a real dream did, but he had no doubt that however much it faded, he would push through and survive.

He kept his steps as steady as possible, trying not to look disoriented. The residual effects of the ordeal meant that he was, though. It was difficult to walk quite right. He pushed through and found his way to the one place he had come to this town to visit.

The proprietor looked up. He assessed Hidan thoroughly, noting the lack of protective armor and the way his customer's hips didn't swing as if they were used to the weight of a sword. Whatever that thing on his hip was, it was clearly not a sword. "Shinobi," he declared as the white-haired man came up to the counter. As he did for all of his customers, but especially the shinobi, he kept his voice low so it was barely a gruff whisper.

Hidan shrugged and addressed the proprietor of the weapons shop bluntly. "Got any new blades?" he asked, pulling his paired knives from their sheathe and thumping them down onto the counter. "It's an occasion. I want to mark the change with something. It had better damn well be something _good_," he specified, just in case the civvie didn't understand that.

The stocky, well-muscled man he was addressing barely restrained a growl. "I know my wares very well, and I makes sure _all_ of them are in fine condition," he informed Hidan. "Normally, since I know them so well, I do my customers the courtesy of selecting what I think would be best, but you seem to fear I don't have the skill to do so. Go ahead; ease your worries," he smirked, gesturing for Hidan to step over to the side and select his own damn weapon.

Well, Hidan was certainly never buying from _this _asshole again, even if he did actually enjoy looking at weapons and would have insisted on picking his own no matter what the moron said. He narrowed his eyes at the man, then turned up his nose. "Not a problem," he loudly declared. He picked up his present weapons and returned them to position as he walked over to the display wall. "Fucking seriously? You market this shit?" He slapped his hand against the wall beneath a sword that was too fancy and show-offy for his tastes, and leaned there as he faced the proprietor. "I believe I requested good shit."

The proprietor was very glad he had no other customers in at the moment. It meant he could do what he was about to do in the hopes of this arrogant prick somehow injuring or humiliating himself, instead of having to settle for the paltry satisfaction of kicking him out of the shop. He took a key from his pocket and locked the box he kept the shop's money in, before approaching. "Well, by all means, feel free to browse my specialty wares, _Your Majesty._" He unlocked the room he would normally select a customer's weapon from, if the arrogant prick hadn't goaded him. He hated to admit the whelp did seem to have the bare minimum of intelligence for a shinobi; the display wall did not, in fact, have the quality goods. They were good enough, and he sold them to customers who didn't expect to see much action, but the kid was right to think he wouldn't hang the good weapons up on the wall for all to see.

Hidan could have broken the door down himself, but the caustic responses he got from worthy opponents were like 80% of the fun or some shit like that. He noticed the way the man never fully turned his back, and wondered why someone who could've done something interesting with their life chose to service a town full of mostly losers and assholes instead. It was almost a shame. He didn't turn his back either until he was a good several meters from the man. That was just common sense.

Hidan traced his hands along the wall between the blades of those assembled there, fully aware of his every motion being watched. The civvie probably didn't deal with any _real_ shinobi. Hidan could, and fancied he would if the mood struck him, spill the man's guts inside of a heartbeat. The mood wasn't there, though, and he enjoyed playing with people who didn't realize they were food.

He sighed wistfully at a sword that would be extremely decent indeed, if it were cut in half and made into two blades. The knives available didn't look _right._ They looked about the same quality as the ones he currently had. Hidan had not been lying when he said he wanted to mark an occasion. After the ordeal of the past few days, he felt very changed. Something had to change to reflect that.

He stopped dead at the sight of a glimmer in the reflection off a blade. The blade was unimportant, but what had he seen in it? He whirled around to face the opposite side of the room. A couple racks impeded his view of the far wall. Then again, those couple of racks impeded his view of the far wall, so what he had seen probably wasn't on the far wall. Hidan strode toward the first rack, closest to him. He noticed neither the proprietor continuing to watch him with growing curiosity and a malicious smile, nor that he had stopped paying attention to the proprietor. All that mattered was the _something_ which had caught him at first glance. Hidan looked the rack over hungrily. This being caught with every fiber of his being was familiar. He had been caught this same way a couple days ago, and had not minded one bit. Yes; whatever it was that had caught him again, he _needed _it to be his new weapon, to mark the occasion.

He passed the closest rack and approached the second. It was short enough that the proprietor could see his head through the handles of the weapons that stuck up into the air. Hidan reached out. carefully nudged one of those handles to the side. There was a flash of red at his feet. It was the glimmer he had seen. Hidan reached in and wasted no time in pulling out the strangest, most gorgeous weapon he had ever seen. He stepped back in time with the swinging of the red blades at his feet, swinging the bright red (_with blood_) scythe up into a good handling position (_for drawing across someone's chest in delicate cris-crosses_). He had never handled any weapon similar to this before, yet it felt like he already knew it. Hidan saw his eyes on the edge of its blades and felt the weight of its head as the weight of his own, the strength of the handle like the strength of his own arm. He felt its warmth on his palm, which promised that it was his. There could be no thought of letting go of this beautiful set of claws; if he did, he would always feel its head like his own, remember the strength of its handle as the strength of his own arm, and mourn the loss of an arm and a head.

The stocky man was pale. That was _not_ one of his. He hadn't been lying when he said he knew his wares, and that was not one of them. So how could it...?

The sound of a loud, predatory rumble broke him from his trance. He looked from the weapon to its wielder, and saw the pink-eyed man growling softly with his mouth just open enough to show his teeth. How had he not noticed the color of those eyes? Were they pink, or were they red? It was difficult to tell the flesh and blood customer from his reflection in the largest of the three blades, though his white hair should have made it easy.

Hidan lifted the scythe over his shoulder and pressed it against his back. He was wearing nothing that would hold it, but some instinct told him it wouldn't matter. He let go of the scarlet handle and felt its warmth stay against his back. The lowest blade tapped lightly against his ankle, feeling cool, but not cold as unhandled metal probably should have felt. Hidan remembered where he was and turned to walk back to the proprietor. His eyes narrowed at the thought of prey. His teeth showed. Every step was exactly the right step, falling soundlessly with no effort on his part.

The man took a step back, bumping into his own wall. How had he not noticed the necklace before, as well? To be sure, he _had_ seen the little chain around his customer's neck. His eyes just hadn't been drawn to it in the same way as they were now. It swayed in time with the scythe, and should it have been shining that much?

Hidan stopped and relieved himself of his entire wallet. There was no point in pretending to try to find a value for what had no value. Might as well try to value his own arm. Nobody but him would ever understand the worth of what was his alone. He tossed his full wallet at the trembling prey-person, striking him full in the face. This was no longer a worthy opponent.

The mood was not right, though. He thought he would like to chase something, to run and smell sweat and blood. A podunk town like this was no place to see such a thing, let alone get its grubby, depressing atmosphere all over the event. He stalked out of the shop feeling more powerful than he ever had before. Suddenly, it seemed as if there was nobody worthy anymore. Not here. Hidan realized it was his time to go after bigger, stronger prey.

Meanwhile, the stocky proprietor melted to the ground. He was still going over in his mind what he had seen. He had seen the golden necklace, and yet almost _felt _it too, in a way he could not quite explain. He had seen the scythe, riding securely on its wielder's back with no straps of any kind.

And he had seen the man himself. His newest customer had walked towards him, and had looked like someone different. As the proprietor did habitually with anyone he didn't know, he had assessed the man in front of him.

There had been absolutely no change. For all the weight the huge scythe should have added, the white-haired man had walked _exactly the same way as when he came in! _


	55. How Does One Go About Building Rome?

**A/N: Aah. It's been a busy week. I'm glad I had my characters to sit back and relax with. And I figured out how to draw Konan's wings!**

**No I didn't; I figured that out months ago, conceptually. I just wasn't able to put it into practice until last night. Turns out, a hodgepodge of right angles, straight lines, and 3-sides-of-a-rectangles is the way to go. 3-sides-of-a-rectangles should have their own name. They're too convenient not to.**

**I was drawing Konan's wings (and started trying to months ago) as part of a fanart I'm trying to do as an image for this story. Hopefully with this one advance, it'll come along faster. Then I just need to figure out how to scan a thing into a computer, among many other things I currently have no idea about. I'm starting to be glad this one's coming along so slowly.**

**Happy day, everyone.**

**.**

**Sasori**

The engineer sat on his little stool and looked around the shed, wishing the stool was a chair so he could rest his arms on the back of it. _Some _kind of rest would be good today. On the table next to him sat the broken tricycle. Its central structure was broken, which would make it a hard fix. If he hadn't been far too aggravated to do so, Sasori supposed he could have looked up how to fix such a thing and what supplies he would need while he waited for news from Laurie.

And then there was the new bike, the one with the broken chain. This bike was the reason Sasori facepalmed just now and began muttering curses under his breath. _This is a shed. There's nobody around to hear. And I'm already starting to go a little insane, if whispering to myself is any indication. I should just go for it. What's the worst that can happen? _

The world and everyone in it were starting to look strange themselves, so Sasori rationalized that nobody had a right to say a damn thing. He stopped muttering, relaxed his face into its usual look, and lowered his hand.

"Alright," he addressed his audience. "Some things need to be made clear." Nobody said anything. He was glad for that.

Sasori looked at the two vehicles. "You guys can't show up at my workplace anymore. The reason for that is because _I _can't show up at my workplace any more. I have some problems with the other humans there. I have no problems with you; it is strictly a people problem." _People have so many problems compared to machines. How I stand it, I may never know._

"I don't expect you to come all the way out here in your condition," Sasori elaborated. "I'll figure out an alternate location, somewhere I or any of my friends can visit easily. That will be a temporary measure while I figure out something more permanent. The alternate location will be where I drop you two off once I get my tools and whatever supplies I need to fix you. Understood?"

He feared that they might answer. Thankfully, they did not. Sasori let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. _I don't know if they can hear me or understand. I might as well be trying to hold conversation with outer space aliens. Why am I doing this? _

His train of thought derailed so fast he didn't even realize it had happened for a moment. His head turned to the door in that moment, so that when Sasori caught up to himself he realized he could hear voices. _Never thought I'd be glad to hear other people_, he thought as he opened the door and peered out.

At the far edge of the parking lot were two people he didn't recognize. One walked silently with his head down. The other appeared to be trying to cheer him up by talking about something exciting. Sasori couldn't tell from this distance if it was working or not.

He closed the shed door with greater force than usual, causing the two men to stop and look around. He walked up to them and raised a hand in greeting. "Hi."

The cheerful one waved. "Hi!" Sasori noticed that his hair looked like it got chewed on a lot. _A laptop? Was he here for a reason? _

The morose one nodded in greeting. "Another one of Konan's friends?" His hair was white and spiky. Sasori knew only one other person with white and spiky hair. He had never seen the demon boy himself, so he could only briefly wonder how much resemblance there was.

Sasori nodded in the affirmative. "What are you two here for?"

The cheerful one held up the laptop. "I'm Ruta, and this is Sakumo. He wanted to see how she was doing, and I wanted to put together a detailed report on everything we don't know about, like the chakra and jutsu and everything."

Sasori surprised himself by bursting out in quiet laughter. He covered his mouth with a hand and stood there shaking, unable to speak. Ruta's eyes widened, and he turned to face Sasori more directly. He looked somewhere to the side of Sasori's head and waited impatiently while the redhead caught his breath.

"Sorry about that," Sasori said when he recovered. "There's just…" His mouth twitched, and he fought his diaphragm until the urge to resume laughing receded. "Chakra isn't the only thing around here we don't know about." _I just finished a one-sided conversation with bicycles. _He strangled himself to keep from laughing again.

Sakumo unconsciously leaned away from the unnerving combination of sensible-looking face and poorly restrained laughter he was seeing. Sasori admired the intelligence this showed. _He'll go very far if he listens to his gut. _The white-haired man noticed his leaning and consciously corrected it.

"Don't do that," Sasori advised.

"What?"

"Try to act like nothing's wrong." Sasori crossed his arms. "I fought a demon last week. Trust me; _listen to your instincts._"

Ruta sat down on the ground and opened his laptop on his legs. "Anything else?" he asked after several seconds of hitting keys.

"The demon was a succubus slash incubus slash we really need a gender neutral name for those things," Sasori recalled. "It could turn either male or female, depending on the preference of whoever it was attacking. Would walk up, hypnotize you, steal your soul through touching." The last sentence ended on an unplanned-for squeak. Sasori decided to ignore it and hope nobody said anything. "We defeated it and Hidan stole its sex-changing powers, so he can change from male to female now whenever he wants, as long as he's wearing a shirt."

"Ooh," Ruta marveled while writing all of this down. "We can get powers from demons?"

Sasori shrugged. "If you can beat them, sure. There are other demons in the bar in town, and they might be of different types with different powers."

"How do you know this?" Ruta asked. His eyes shone brightly up at Sasori's shoulder.

"The other demon told us," he explained. "He's different from the types at the bar. He's more powerful, can't be defeated, and is more...generalized. He's just like a really powerful person; not as specialized as a succubus is."

"The one that looks like a child?" Sakumo asked.

Sasori looked at him. "Yeah. How did you know?"

Sakumo unconsciously leaned away, this time from Ruta's eyes boring into his flesh. "Kisame visited a few days ago. I specifically asked him about anything that might be dangerous."

"And you didn't say anything to me?!" Ruta sounded hurt and confused. Tears appeared in his eyes.

"You looked pretty overwhelmed from hearing about chakra," Sakumo said. "It was all you could talk about. You already had so many questions; I didn't want to put so much pressure on you. Besides, you tend to skip from one thing to another. I wanted to keep the first thing first."

Ruta looked down. This was true. "Well, I just finished asking her about chakra and writing it down, so there's no harm now." He pressed several more keys. "What did he say when you asked?"

"Oh, you're the animal people," Sasori realized. "I thought the name Sakumo sounded familiar. I'm Sasori. It's nice to finally meet you."

Sakumo looked startled to hear Sasori's name, but he said nothing as they shook hands. Sasori was distracted and did notice, but did not immediately wonder about this. _Is it a good or a bad thing that I'm so willing to share information with other people in the same boat? _he wondered instead. _Should I be talking to people I don't know this way, or is it a good thing to be so eager to help? _

"I'm half tiger," Ruta told him. He was still sitting on the ground with his laptop, grinning.

_That explains the chewed hair._ _Or does it? Do we have tigers in these woods? _"You'll love Hidan then."

Ruta grinned again. "I do! He likes purring as much as I do, even though neither of us are domestic. Only domestic and other really small cats purr. Tigers are supposed to roar, but I prefer purring. Growling softly just isn't the same."

Sasori nodded. "I stand by what I said." _They even talk alike. _"Anyway," he addressed Sakumo, "what did Kisame tell you?

Sakumo ran down the entire list of dangerous demons in town, trickster demon down the road, possessed lake, vampires, harmless little boy in town, and a god. His voice was very blank as he did so, as if he couldn't decide how to feel about any of the items on the list and so had decided to feel nothing at all. Ruta accompanied his every word with the sound of clicking keys. Sasori frowned at the end.

"It helps not to think about it too much," he told Sakumo. "If you stop to think about all of it at once, you realize exactly how much there is. Just focus on dealing with whatever comes up. That way, you get used to it little by little, without having to give yourself brain freeze."

"I'm trying." Sakumo looked much older all of a sudden. "I'm trying." His efforts did not appear to be working very well.

Ruta frowned, then picked up his laptop and stood up. He gave the laptop to Sasori and punched Sakumo very lightly in the arm. "Hey. It's fine. We can deal with a few tricks, and the rest sounds pretty fun. It'll all be fine."

Sakumo closed his eyes. "Maybe. Not now. It's bad enough being asked about _him_…"

Sasori recognized this as a scene he was very much not a part of, and stayed out of it. He turned his attention to the laptop. It was open on a document titled **Things That Aren't Related To Chakra**. Below that, Ruta had listed everything Sakumo had mentioned, with the **Demons In Town** entry containing a full paragraph describing everything Sasori had said, plus commentary. Sasori sat down in the least attention grabbing way he knew and began to type. He replaced the **Possessed Lake** entry with **Hidan**, and typed what he knew. _"Can feel other people's emotions and emotion-related things, including thoughts. No idea how. Perception extends to anything that has emotions or emotion-related things. Methods of dealing with emotions include washing them away, solving other people's problems, probably others. Loses his memory a lot; no idea why, how, or what happens to his memories. The lost memories are things that upset him. Topics that he will almost always forget include: Jashin sama, probably others. Has yet to notice or react to the change in the air since the basement symbol was drawn._" Sasori also added **Sapient Bicycles** to the bottom of the list. For that, he typed: _"Don't ask. I'll mention it when I know anything at all about them." _

Sakumo shrugged off Ruta's awkward attempts to help. "It just hurts, remembering how I was looking forward to meeting him so badly… To a father, it's one of the worst pains imaginable. I know you want to help, but it really can't be helped. It's like a stabbing pain in my chest every time I remember." His voice sounded flat and resigned. Something about that felt _wrong_ to Sasori. He entered the conversation.

"That might be true, but Ruta's right too. It really isn't as bad as it feels like." Sasori handed the laptop back to Ruta, who was grateful for the shifting of responsibility. "Remember about the symbol in the basement. It has different effects on everyone. Nagato said he was jumpy and nervous. Hidan hasn't noticed. Konan likes it. Kisame's irritated by it. I've consistently been more upset than I usually would be. It's not improbable that it's making you hurt worse." _I don't know how to help him feel better. How can I get that hopelessness out? _"It's not as bad as you think," Sasori finished, lamely. He was sure that, just like everyone else who heard that piece of useless wisdom, Sakumo wouldn't be able to believe it. So what good was it? _I should have left this to Hidan. Anyone but me. _

Sakumo looked back at the no-longer-abandoned hotel. Ruta glanced up too after he finished reading Sasori's additions. Sakumo said, "I was really unsure of what to do in there. Everything seemed overwhelming." Sasori thanked his lucky stars that Sakumo's eyes were brighter now that he had an explanation. _Hooray for not screwing up too badly. _

Ruta said, "I was all buzzy. I couldn't hold still, it was hard to think, and I think my hands were shaking." He bit his lip and tried to decide if that feeling had been bad or good.

"Everything _is_ overwhelming." Sasori could sympathize with that. "I'm still rethinking my entire life, trying to figure out what happened when the incubus attacked me and how I feel about it, and everything." He turned slightly before Ruta could say anything. "Don't ask what happened." The tiger man shut his mouth and turned red.

Sakumo let out a deep breath. "How do you take the weight of it?" His shoulders looked burdened.

_I don't know. _How did Sasori handle everything he had to deal with? _It… doesn't actually feel like it is such a weight. I've only felt overwhelmed a few times. _The puppetmaster tilted his head and frowned slightly. It seemed he was able to just not feel the weight most of the time. He opened his mouth to explain this to Sakumo when his phone rang.

He paused, and decided that he needed more time to think of what he wanted to say anyway. "Excuse me." Sasori turned away and took a few steps before answering the call. "What is it, Dei?" _Please let him not be calling about disaster. _

There was a pause, then the level of ambient noise increased and Sasori could suddenly hear two voices quietly snickering. "Got it on speaker, yeah," Deidara whispered. "Heh. She told me you'd want to hear this, yeah."

_Deidara. Laurie. Together, in the shop, with my boss who is acting unusually scary. _"What are you doing and why are you doing it?" he asked, in a voice of dread. _Deidara, in the shop. With Laurie. And the manager. __**Something's happening. **_

"Shh," Deidara hushed him quietly.

"Alright," came Laurie's extremely quiet voice. "He's going, he's going."

"I got 'em," Deidara said. Sasori could hear him grinning. Sasori could also hear Ruta walking up to him quietly, hesitating, then backing away. He held up a hand to tell the tiger man to wait. It wouldn't be too much longer.

"He's going," Laurie repeated.

Deidara snickered again, in that way that Sasori was learning to fear. There was the sound of the phone shifting. A door opened. There were some indistinct mutters in the distance.

"AAAGGGGHHH!" someone screamed. Sasori sputtered and started to cough with his mouth hanging open. _Was that…?!_

Extremely strangled yet dangerously loud laughter burst out on the other end of the line, and didn't stop for a full 3 minutes. Sasori's mouth was still hanging open. _Holy shit. _His respect for the kid increased a hundredfold. _He went there. He pulled it off. I don't know what it is, but he did it. _

As soon as the laughter had died down to quiet chuckling, Sasori had to ask. "What did you two geniuses do, and how did you do it?" He waved Ruta over. Whatever it was had to be good enough to share. He put Deidara on speakerphone as Ruta stood by, already smiling in preparation. Sakumo could be heard approaching as well.

Deidara burst out sniggering again. "Spiders," he said through another audible grin.

Laurie took the phone and was able to restrain herself better. "3 of them. He had a cute one named Stitchy, and two others, and he sent them into the manager's office and had them sit on his desk!"

"And then," Deidara added, "I got the idea to make them turn toward him as he opened the door, yeah!"

Sasori facepalmed. "Deidara…"

"Strawberry and shrimp chow fun. Don't forget," the blonde answered.

Sasori shook his head and laughed quietly. "Only the best. How is he reacting?"

There was silence before Laurie came back to report, "He's chasing them around and hasn't managed to catch one yet. How are your spiders so fast?"

There was a growl of frustration. "Uh oh," Laurie said. "Go!" Sasori heard a couple seconds of hasty retreating noises before the call ended. _*Beep*_

"Cute spiders? How cute?" was what Ruta wanted to know.

Sasori looked sideways smugly at him. "_Very._ But they're Deidara's, so I'm afraid you'll have to come by another time." The tiger man shot a glance behind Sasori's head to Sakumo.

Sakumo nodded. "That was interesting," he admitted. "Another couple of friends?" Sasori nodded. "Alright. At any rate…"

Sasori couldn't believe it. _Why would he want to go back to talking about how overwhelming everything is? This is - _

Sakumo looked up after a few seconds to see his newest friend staring off into space. "Hello?"

Sasori blinked. "That's it." He looked to Sakumo, then down at his phone. "You asked how I deal with the weight. The answer is that I don't. Most of the time, there isn't any weight. I don't deal with it except when I set aside time to do so."

Ruta realized what he was getting at. "Humor," he answered.

"Yeah. It really does make everything feel lighter," Sasori told Sakumo. _That's the secret to dealing with all of this. You need to laugh. _He wondered if the hysterical laughing from earlier was an attempt at self-medicating, then. If so, he need not be upset or fearful that he was going insane. Sasori chose to think of it as self-medicating.

He expected Sakumo to be grateful. Instead, the wolf man frowned and looked as dejected as he had before. "It's not right to laugh at some things," he said while shaking his head.

"I wasn't." Sasori nudged his arm to get his attention back. "I wasn't laughing at any of my troubles just now; I was laughing at something else. Being able to laugh at one thing makes _everything_ lighter, or maybe the humor makes me stronger. I don't know which, but I do know it'll probably help." After saying that, he took the time to try and figure out what Sakumo was actually upset about. _One of the worst pains imaginable to a father… He was looking forward to meeting "him"... _

Sasori blanched. _My god. Did he lose a child? _He was very, very grateful for how he had phrased his advice. _That is as far from joking territory as it's possible to get. I'm so sorry. Should I say anything?_

"Humor could make me stronger?" Sakumo rubbed his chin. "I _do_ feel more powerful when I'm around my family. I can try it."

Ruta glanced at his laptop, which he had closed and tucked back under his arm. "Weren't we planning to go back in and ask him how she was doing?"

Sakumo smiled. "She said she was going to spend time with him. Let's not interrupt. We'll come back another day for that."

"Strawberry shrimp chow fun…" Ruta murmured to himself. "Could be interesting."

Sasori gagged. "Oh, no," he told Ruta. "NO. It was strawberry AND shrimp chow fun. He likes ice cream and Chinese food as a treat."

"_I_ can try _that_," Ruta declared.

Sakumo begged, "Please not around anyone else." He grimaced at the idea of those two foods together.

Sasori's phone rang again. "Yep?"

"He left!" Laurie was speaking at normal volume. "He left. Come and get your stuff, quickly!"

Sasori ended the call and informed his two new acquaintances-turned-friends that he needed to go. Sakumo nodded, and he had a hopeful look in his eyes. Ruta had his tongue out and swallowed back saliva every few seconds. _And I feel a lot better about my ability to handle everything. _This conversation had been good for everybody.

With that in mind, Sasori was able to hang up his leather jacket before going to fetch his tools. _It's amazing how far a day can turn, and how fast._ He remembered learning that with Laurie almost a full week ago, but one could always use reminders of lessons like that.

**Kakuzu**

It was with great satisfaction that Kakuzu sat down in his computer chair in the home he was no longer frustrated with, and logged in. As he consulted the paper next to his hand, entering the codes he saw thereon in the appropriate boxes, his eyes gleamed with the look of a predator. He'd spent several days setting this up. A phone call the first day, two more to certain people he knew the next, some time spent here and there poring through old and recent records… It took a lot of advance time, but the wait was worth it. It always was. As a rule, Kakuzu didn't bother waiting for things that weren't worth it. He relished the things that were. No minor pleasures could compare to the sheer satisfaction of seeing a project finally come together. _The most important things in life don't happen within a day. _

He searched for the account number he'd received yesterday, and opened the one record that matched. He felt like a bear about to sink his claws into a fat, juicy hive. His metaphorical claws hit liquid gold when he saw the name on the account. Kakuzu's eyebrows raised. _So _this_ is where some of the cash stream's been flowing? I wish I could say I was surprised. _

His green eyes glowed. He'd had to put a lot of detective work in to get this far. As it turned out, the manager only had one personal account at the bank mentioned on the page. It looked like a regular checking account, but it had no name on it. and it only ever received deposits from another account that Kakuzu did not recognize. He'd had to call in several favors to find out where the deposits came from. Upon doing so, Kakuzu had discovered the manager's _actual_ personal accounts; he'd gotten ahold of transaction records and verified that they appeared to be used for entirely ordinary purchases. There was another checking account among them which had the exact same name and setup. From its history, it was used half for checking and half for cash funneling. Kakuzu was starting to understand the man's need for a physical page to keep track of which checking account was which, as well as which account should transfer to which account. There were some dates on the back of the page; they corresponded to the dates of past transfers _out_ of the unnamed account, and one future. Several things only he could have gotten away with later, Kakuzu had found what he was looking for. It turned out to be yet another unnamed account, this one closely connected to a different system of suspicious accounts, which led to what he was looking at right now: the personal account of someone you were better off not shorting. As far as Kakuzu could tell, the shop manager was not better off. _But not enough. Somehow, I manage to be even less surprised._

He imagined the cash stream flowing to this guy would get even tighter as soon as the reasonable waiting period for the latest transaction had passed. After hearing about the manager's sudden absence on Wednesday, and seeing the future date indicating that Sunday, Kakuzu had developed a hunch. Sure enough, with much scraping together of all the money in his legitimate accounts and some extra withdrawals from the auto shop's, another transfer had been sent out to the better-off-not-shorted account a couple days later. By that point, Kakuzu had enough evidence of suspicious-looking activity to get one of his helpful bank acquaintances to void the transaction and begin the process of taking a closer look at the money passing between the shop account and the manager's personal accounts. Voiding the transaction was the more important part; the investigation was nice, but Kakuzu was sure it wasn't going to lead anywhere in the _very short_ amount of time that would pass before the lost money was noticed.

He wasn't likely to earn any money on this venture, but that was okay, because his time and effort were more than repaid by vicious satisfaction. What was money if not a way to make oneself happy? This was just skipping a step. Moreover, he had made a promise to a friend, and since Kakuzu seriously considered that person a friend, so he would seriously keep his promise. He would consider it a bonus if he somehow managed to seize the contents of the manager's lost and unnamed account.

Hidan had mentioned something about delivering a tricycle, so it seemed Sasori's foray into motorless vehicles was continuing. Kakuzu consulted Google for a good location. Google also made an excellent consultant regarding that pool place the bookie had told him of. Kakuzu found time to wonder how much the local supernatural activity was influencing their Internet. _That's not a sentence I ever expected to think. _

On a whim, he searched for "supernatural activity near me." Oddly enough, not a single result had so much as a word related to the supernatural in it. However, the top result was an article about how some "influential lobbyists" had argued successfully for the ceasing of development in the land west of town some years ago. Kakuzu was frightened by this._ I would think that was related to supernatural activity, but only because I am a human. Computers don't have the ability to make those kinds of connections. At least they aren't supposed to. _He narrowed his eyes at the tape covering the webcam. Humidity over the years had soaked the tape close to translucency. He really needed to replace it with something more opaque.

Kakuzu read the entire article, searching for further description of these "lobbyists." He found none, except for the name of the group they had claimed to be lobbyists for. Kakuzu searched for that name, and opened every result he got in its own tab.

Most of it was property dealings, with the cessation of development being the biggest of those dealings. Those results were mildly interesting, but nothing too exciting. Nothing demanded that Kakuzu follow it up right now. Then he got to Result #15.

An hour and a half later, Kakuzu was dialing Hidan's number and trying not to break his phone in the process. "Pick up, pick up," he growled. _Shit, shit, shit. First the demon girl and now this? What the hell is going on here?!_

.

**A/N: Behold: my best attempt at figuring out what could plausibly have been happening, based on what little I know of how banking works, pop culture osmosis of gangster movies, and the random details I threw in to describe what was on that page in Chapter 17. It's probably adequate, but there's a reason I focus on fantasy and keep the characters' day jobs out of the spotlight. A story that takes place in the real world is a terrible story for me to be the author for, but I'm the one that had the dream, so I'll do my best. **

**On a tangentially related note, OH MY GOD. Late on Friday night, around 11 pm when I was trying and failing to get to sleep, I suddenly realized what Nagato's day job is! I was just thinking about what kind of money shenanigans should be happening, and then I thought about how I don't know what Nagato does either, and then I started trying to picture it, and a vision just came to me. It's perfect! I don't know how it took me this long to realize.**

**I've never had ice cream and shrimp chow fun together, but I like them both, so how bad could they go? The worst thing I can imagine is if the residual taste that was lingering on my tongue mixed with the incoming taste of the other dish and that was weird, but even then it would be weird only briefly until the new taste replaced the old. If I ever have ice cream in the house at the same time as I have shrimp chow fun, I should try it. Also, regarding strawberry shrimp chow fun, that could be very bad, but only if the strawberry flavor was in the noodles or sauce. The noodles are designed to take on the properties of the sauce, which is savory. Their whole texture and everything is designed for a savory flavor, not for sweetness. If the strawberry flavor was localized to the shrimp though, that would be cool.**

**No omake this chapter. I just didn't feel like it. Have a brilliant week!**


	56. Trust

**A/N: To reiterate: I know _absolutely nothing_ about how aquariums work. Everything stated about the real world in this story is guesswork unless otherwise noted. Had to make my own setting because of this, etc. Do not blame the characters for living or working in a poorly researched place.**

**On that note, I recognize that last chapter ended on a cliffhanger. But sometime after writing last chapter I realized that I'd made it a big deal what Kisame was going to do with Samehada regarding bringing the shark back to the aquarium, so I'd better address it. A cliffhanger is the best place to insert such a thing, because cliffhangers interrupt the story and create spaces like this just by existing. Like a cauterized laser wound; it may technically be a gap in need of completion, but it's been sealed off so it doesn't demand attention as urgently. **

**We'll get back to Kakuzu next chapter. **

.

_Much earlier that morning…_

**Kisame**

_Time to get you out of my head, you annoying traitorous weasel._

Kisame bared his sharp teeth in a snarl. Anger was good. It helped him greatly to view his current journey as a mission to prove his original wrong, rather than a dangerous gamble he was making on little more than a hunch. He could easily see his too-reflexive paranoia tripping him up if he dared think the second. It was better to be mad. _Either this world is like that, or it's not. Either way, I'll have the information to make up my own damn mind, instead of having to be jerked around like a doll._

Samehada curled up in the backseat, lolling his tongue out of his mouth. He didn't seem bothered or upset at all, so Kisame guessed that his favorite shark knew and understood. The shark draped himself over the back of the passenger-side seat and stared out the windshield. Kisame wondered what he thought of the view. He also wondered what the tongue-lolling-out meant. For some reason, he couldn't stop seeing the gesture as: _Is he laughing? _

Samehada began to wiggle back and forth and make high pitched frantic noises as they got nearer. When they arrived, he was flopping up and down and wiggling in every conceivable direction in the backseat. Kisame was glad he'd chosen to give his shark the backseat instead of asking him to wear a seatbelt. It would not have gone over well.

Kisame parked, forced the snarl away from his face, opened the door, forced it away again, and opened the door to the backseat. By the time Samehada tumbled out and climbed on his back, his teeth were bared again. He slammed the rear door shut and took several moments to collect himself. Samehada licked his hair to maximum spikiness and chirred soothingly.

Kisame fought to relax the hand that he was propping himself against the car with. "I don't like it," he growled to Same. "It's wrong to be freaked out for no reason like this. What am I, a kitten? I know I won't let you be taken away from me if the _absolute worst_ happens, so why do I care? There's no excuse for this."

Samehada bit his upper arm, clamping his teeth just hard enough for Kisame to wince. "Thanks," he muttered. Strangely, the pain helped. He was expecting there to be _some_ pain today, so maybe it helped validate his instincts and made them feel less ignored? Sakumo had said something related to that. _He said he knew about "working with" instincts. So maybe I shouldn't just throw them away? _Kisame wished he could have learned even one tip or strategy for doing so before today. Oh well, too late now. He removed his hand from the car and petted Samehada with it as they walked inside.

Samehada understood that Human Cousin had learned bad things from his Original and was nervous, so he wriggled backward until his head just barely peeked over Kisame's shoulder and clamped himself tightly to Kisame's back. Having made himself no more visible than he needed to be, Samehada proceeded to sample the air with numerous quick flicks of his tongue. He'd forgotten how good it tasted! The blend of humans was much greater than what he'd gotten used to over the past week, and peppered throughout was the smooth, salty undercurrent of chakra from the sea life residing here. He turned every signal up to eleven so that Human Cousin would be unable to miss how absolutely, incredibly happy and grateful Samehada was to be brought back here. This was not a bad, scary place.

_He would make a good masseuse. _Kisame felt every tense muscle in his back relax from the force of Samehada's rumbling. He briefly wondered if this was why cats purred to heal themselves. Samehada was no cat, but his deep rumbling felt like it was healing something all the same. He reached back to pet Samehada on the snout. _I hear you loud and clear. _

Thus fortified, he decided to immediately find some excuse to be in the vicinity of someone with authority and an interest in the exhibits. If Kisame didn't see how they reacted _now_, he knew he wasn't going to be able to focus until he did.

Kisame helped himself focus as he searched for a supervisor by recalling everything he remembered thinking while he had been under the influence of the false memories. As he searched for the octopus exhibit, which usually had one or, more commonly, multiple handlers present, Kisame remembered what he had already remembered the last time he was here with Samehada. _I thought I might get in trouble for slacking off, as if I was some kid chatting away with their friends while on the clock. I didn't think of what Same _is_ at all. _

He found the octopus exhibit closed, as it sometimes was on Monday mornings. There was a member of staff present, but he was young and had no real authority. His only job was to tell people, "Our apologies. The octopus got up to some tricks over the weekend, so we need to search his tank and get him back in confinement. It'll take two hours." He also gave directions to the gift shop.

Kisame approached the kid anyway. He tapped Samehada on the snout twice to tell the shark it was time to come up. Samehada wriggled upward to his accustomed position, where he could settle his head comfortably on Kisame's shoulder. In this position, he made short warbles of greeting as they approached.

"Hi." Kisame realized he didn't know how to go about approaching people he didn't know very well. _What the hell do I say? Small talk? What counts as small talk around here? _"Does the octopus have a name?" _If that doesn't make me sound like an idiot! I have always wondered, though. _

"I think so." This was the same junior staff member who had been called out to stand here the previous three times this had happened, Kisame realized. It had to be, unless the aquarium had more than one friendly, round-cheeked, Asian man in his twenties with short black hair. He was pretty sure this was the only Asian staff member, period. _Isn't that discriminatory. _The kid scratched one side of his chin next to a mole. "I don't work very closely with the full-time octo handlers, but I've heard them talk. His name is something unusual, like Harbi or something similar."

Samehada wriggled back and forth and chirped. Kisame laid a hand on his snout protectively. "I don't think an octopus and a shark would make good friends," he told Samehada. His eyes stayed within peripheral sight range of the young man's face as he said so.

The young man shrugged. "Don't some sharks eat octopus?" he asked.

"Yeah…"

"Then probably not. He's smart, so he'll know to avoid something with that many teeth." The young man smiled sadly at Samehada.

Samehada continued to make cheerful sounds, though more subdued. It was true that he might scare Harbi, but if the octopus was that smart, he'd probably be smart enough to know he was safe behind glass! They wouldn't be able to talk through smell, but Samehada remembered things he'd overheard from children who had yet to get over previous exhibits. They spoke of color changing. Samehada wagged his tail back and forth. Whatever an octopus was, surely they could figure out a way to talk through sight and sound alone. He wanted to meet Harbi!

"Thanks." Kisame lowered his hand. _He treated Same just like a person I'd brought with me. Then again, he doesn't know Same as an attraction. I need to see what someone who cares about money would think. _"I'll come back later and ask someone full-time." He departed. Samehada wondered if he should wriggle back down, but was happy to observe that Human Cousin did not tense up again as they left. He celebrated by licking Kisame's hair into shape again.

"Not in public," Kisame admonished. His feet turned toward the shark exhibit. _They're pretty tolerant of the octopus' antics, but he's an octopus. Octopi are known to be tricksters. They probably factored the extra trouble in when deciding to give him a place here. It has to be different when the most popular shark goes missing. How different's the question. _

It wasn't the only question, but Kisame sensed he was out of time. The flow of people around him was increasing, and something had to break or require cleaning sooner or later. He needed to return Samehada to the tank soon if he was going to do so at all.

_Ugh. _There were already two people in the room. And, of course, the ladder leading up to the top of the tank was gone, and the top was probably sealed shut. Never before had Kisame regretted so much that he was basically an adjunct handler. According to his actual job description, he needed to be there in the morning to set up some things that didn't have to do with any animal in the place, then he would have the middle of the day free while being on call for emergencies, and then at the end of the day he would check things and take stuff down if need be. If there was one thing the aquarium's managers were good at, it was placing people-oriented and socially awkward staff where they belonged. This was an essential skill to have when running what was basically an aquatic-themed community center.

This same organizational genius was the reason why Kisame had extra responsibilities related to the sharks, and a boosted salary to go with. Sadly, it was not the salary of two full positions. He could be the unofficial liaison, checking the sharks over for signs ordinary humans might miss, but he was not the one to stay with them regularly throughout the day. It was one of the regular folks who pulled out the ladder and unlocked the feeding platform sometime shortly before closing. He didn't know how to do those things.

"Same," he whispered. The shark stopped moving and listened. "You know how the people that normally check on you open up the tank before I come by?"

Samehada nodded.

"That means I don't know to do that," Kisame finished. "I haven't looked around for a possible mechanism when I've been up there with you, either. The missing ladder isn't a problem, but I can't believe I've been stupid enough not to look for how it's opened! If you want to meet your old friends, you'll need to figure it out." He ground his teeth together. _I've had a lot of distractions, _one part of him argued. _And people who work jobs while taking care of their grandmothers have distractions too, but they get it done, _argued another part. _That's not a reason to let someone down. What, now that you have other friends, the sharks _you_ called "family" are less important now? How much of Original Kisame's traitorous weasely ways did you inherit? _

It was the first time the question had been so bluntly stated, but Kisame wasn't surprised. In some way, he had always wondered, ever since he had been told about his original. _Would I ever betray my friends? _It was a question he did not have an answer for.

_Not _yet_. If there is no answer yet, I'll make one. _He backed out of sight and bared his teeth again. Samehada crawled over his shoulder to face him, whining. He could probably figure out a way into the tank, but what was wrong with Human Cousin?

Kisame knelt down to scratch near his dorsal fin. "Same," he said, "I'm sorry I didn't think to look for a way in. I'm sorry I didn't ask you what you wanted. I want to be a good friend. I don't want to be the same kind of backstabbing bastard she said Other Me was. I won't let down my friends or family."

Samehada licked the tip of his nose. He already knew that.

Kisame sighed. "Curse my poor people skills," he muttered. Full-time handlers were the people who had to know their animals inside and out in order to explain them to the customers all day. That's why he wasn't a full-time handler. "If you can't get in, I'll stay near the octopus exhibit where that guy was for the next half hour. If I get called away before then, I'll tell him you might want to ask me about something and give him directions."

Samehada made a low sound of happiness and awe. It was more than he knew how to explain, but he could identify at least some portion of this feeling as pride. To be tasked with a mission based on intelligence and figuring things out, to have Human Cousin look at him with the faith that he had just the same chance as Human Cousin himself would have…

Kisame glanced around the door to see a third person had joined the room. This was nothing compared to the assembled crowd at peak hours. "Go." He passed his hand over Samehada's head in one last pet.

The shark snapped a confirmation, and immediately started up the wall. He would prove Human Cousin right!

**Samehada**

He flattened his belly as much as he could to minimize noise, and made his way up the wall with little more than a quiet rasp. From there, he crawled onto the ceiling, and raised himself over (or under) the top of the doorway to crawl directly onto the ceiling of the shark room. Samehada made his way all the way up before proceeding toward the tank. From some of the things Human Cousin said, he had realized that Human Cousin worried about how other humans would see him. They couldn't see him at all if he was up here where they didn't look, could they? There would be no worries up here.

Samehada made sure he was behind something (a pole) and in a relatively shadowy corner before descending the wall onto the feeding platform. It was closed, like Human Cousin had said. Samehada looked around, but did not see much in the low light. The shark exhibit was not brightly lit, like some of the others were. Most of the light came from the tank. Samehada understood that because he had amazed children before by waiting until another cousin swam overhead and suddenly swimming out from whatever rock he was under. They thought he was a shadow. They liked shark shadows.

He crawled over to where the lid would normally be pulled back. It really made no sense, what the humans did with this lid. Sometimes the top was left open for a while without feeding, sometimes it was closed almost all day. Samehada thought it might have to do with the bubble machine, which often made fewer bubbles when it was open, but sometimes the bubble machine made just as many as normal. The only thing which kind of made sense was that there were never very many humans when it was open, and if one of the Tank Cousins was angry or sick, it never was. _Why not let sick cousins splash? Splashing is fun. Splashing means something interesting is there. _Sick cousins sometimes didn't swim right though, so if there was splashing they might bump their nose on the edge as they came near. Samehada felt injured when he thought of that. He wouldn't splash so carelessly, and he was the only one that ever splashed. The other Tank Humans did not trust him like Human Cousin did.

Same tried to push the lid open. No good; there was no handle or other sign that it was supposed to be pushed, and sometimes he knew there was no Tank Human around when the lid opened. So who opened the lid? Samehada looked around, again to no avail, and tried to remember. He didn't hear much when the lid opened, so there probably wasn't a little metal arm to pull it open. There was sometimes a funny burst of water where the lid pulled back. The lid was thin and pulled back like a shirt where some of the sleeve stuck to a human's arm, so it folded and went back into the rest of the sleeve, and then the human had to pull it out again. Maybe there was a little arm inside the thick part that the lid went into. Samehada went over to the thick part and quietly asked any little arms in there to pull the lid back so he could get in. Nothing happened.

If the little arms didn't open it, who did? Samehada saw no humans around, but sometimes humans looked at things that were far away through glass screens. Samehada crawled around the top of the tank looking for a glass screen. _Can humans understand? _Human Cousin wouldn't be on the other side of a glass screen if he found one, so how could Samehada hope to ask? The shark whined. It was not a good question because he didn't even see any screens.

He took a brief rest to figure out what to do. He had to prove Human Cousin right to look at him in that way. Samehada sighed in awe again. He didn't think _anyone _could describe the size of this feeling. It was Very Very Large. Maybe Curious Tiger Person could; nobody else even had a chance. Humans looked at other humans and saw themselves, and of course they trusted themselves, so why would they not trust other humans? It was not important for humans to look at each and think that the other had thoughts and could do things. They were much more surprised when other humans _couldn't _do things, like if a small human couldn't understand an idea. Humans had to earn distrust; he had heard a Tank Human say once that everyone knew if there was a warning sign for something, it was because a human had actually done that thing. Before then, the one who made the signs would not have expected other humans to make mistakes, would have expected them to know better. Nobody expected that from Samehada, except for Human Cousin and the Red Cloud Humans and the Animal People. Even then, Human Cousin hadn't finished teaching the others. They didn't _really_ expect it yet. How could a human know how Very Very Large it felt? It was like water. They swam in a whole vast lake of being expected to be smart and do things.

Samehada whimpered. He didn't know if one of the Tank Cousins was sick today. Maybe the lid would never open. Then he wouldn't be able to meet the Tank Cousins and he wouldn't be able to do anything.

_Defiance! _Samehada shook himself and snapped at the air. _Curiosity? _Why should the lid open on its own? If it did Samehada wouldn't have made it and Human Cousin would think he was right, but he wouldn't really know. Samehada had to open the lid on his own, before it opened itself. Was he really like Human Cousin? He had to know if it was true. If he really was like Human Cousin, then maybe…

Samehada went back to the part the lid crawled back into. If there were little arms in there, there might be thin muscles to tell them what to do. He stuck his tongue out and kept very still, not wanting to cut any thin muscles with his scales. They were _very_ thin, so small most of them could fit inside a pencil. Despite this, they were very strong. He'd found a thin muscle that helped lamps make light and licked it once, and then Nice Human had told him to please not to because it would hurt him if he chewed it. It didn't look like it could attack anything, and never seemed to want to. But it made light, and that meant it had to be very strong so Samehada left it alone. He still hadn't figured out how it could hurt him if it did attack, but it would not be good to find out here on top of the tank where Human Cousin was far away.

Samehada's tongue bumped into a clump of things that felt smooth and long. He crawled over very slowly and felt them with his tongue, hoping they wouldn't get angry and attack. Did all thin muscles feel the same way? Maybe the ones in Nice Human's room were nice like he was and that was why they would never attack unless they were hurt. The ones here could be angrier. They were certainly thicker and there were few of them, so they had to be powerful.

To his joy, they did appear to be thin muscles. _Happy! Joy! _He had demonstrated smartness like Human Cousin. Now he had to get the tank open somehow. Samehada tried asking the thin muscles very nicely if they could make the little arms pull the lid back so he could get in. After a pause, he even nuzzled them, making sure not to break them. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do. The lid did not open.

Samehada shrank back and tried to get them to forgive him. It was a mistake; he wouldn't nuzzle again! Still nothing happened. Were they still angry? Samehada couldn't tell, because they had thick shells. He thought it might be the shells that kept him from tasting any chakra. They had to have chakra because they made light like the sun, which had chakra, and they could hurt him like other animals, who had chakra. Samehada wondered what kind of shell could be chakra-proof. It must be very special.

Just then he realized something that left him soundless, unable to even wag his tail. Things that didn't have chakra were like stones or dead things, not living. Suppose that the shell was like a stone, and the _real_ thin muscle was hidden inside like a worm beneath the stone? Then the shell could have no chakra for him to taste, and yet the thin muscle would be able to travel through the shell and make light or whatever it wanted! Was that why it would attack if he chewed through the shell? Because it felt scared and vulnerable?

If that was true then it must be _even thinner_ than it looked! Maybe it was only as big as an ant? Samehada looked closely in the low light. Yes; if it was only as thick as an ant, the long shell could be thick enough to absorb chakra. That would explain why it was so long, too, and disappeared into the wall! The shell could be made of a special material that could carry chakra away and send it somewhere secret in the wall where no predator would ever be able to find the chakra and trace it back. That was why Samehada couldn't taste anything! Was it the same material that Red Claw Person had used in the fight with Bird Person? Maybe the humans harvested it from these thin muscles.

If so, there had to be a way to take part of the shell off without being attacked. Samehada studied them to find the best place. There was a place where the very end of the thin muscle had nested in the top of the tank. Even the humans didn't touch their nests, so Samehada settled for somewhere away from the nest. The thin muscle looked thicker as it got closer to the nest. Maybe the shell was thicker there, and good for harvesting. Samehada curled up into a position that was uncomfortable even for him, and wished he had a form like a human's. Humans were able to do stuff and look at what they were doing at the same time because their eyes were very far away from their hands. Samehada normally did stuff with his mouth, but that was too dangerous now. He had to be able to see if the thin muscle inside was going to attack. He wished he had a very long snout or something so his mouth could be far from his eyes.

Slowly, he sawed at the thick shell with the edge of the largest exposed scale on his tail. It was very difficult. Samehada's tail did not have many exposed scales; they were small and smooth and hard, good for a human to hold. His scales got more bristly on his body, but he wasn't flexible enough to see those. He whimpered. Was proving Human Cousin right worth the risk?

Yes. It was and always would be worth any risk. The feeling from being trusted was so large, it _had_ to be able to protect Samehada from anything, even the bite of a light-maker. He growled softly, and held the rest of the shell with his tongue while he caught one tooth on the place where he wanted to cut it open. Slowly, Samehada bit down.

The shell resisted at first, but couldn't bend away from a slicing attack. Samehada knew he was making progress. He continued sawing very, very slowly, while paying a lot of attention to his tongue. If the thin muscle suddenly moved to attack, he would feel it.

Samehada felt nothing, so he continued, until something bit at his tooth! He dropped the thin muscle and retreated. How? He hadn't felt it move at all! According to his tongue, his tooth was not injured. The attack had been weak. Samehada crept up to investigate.

He licked around the very edges of the gap in the shell, ready to pull his tongue back at the first attack. He needed his tongue; he couldn't let it get hurt. _Huh? _He licked again. _Chakra? _

It was! Samehada rattled _happiness. _He had done it! He'd broken through the shell to reach the _real_ thin muscle beneath! He sampled the air above the cut shell to _finally_ find out what kind of chakra a thin muscle had.

_Uh oh. _Samehada put the thin muscle down and backed away, less happy now. He knew that kind of chakra. _Bitey sharp fast-attack chakra. Not good! _Worse, the chakra didn't taste like it normally did. Chakra was normally delicious and tasty and peaceful, but sometimes when angry it could transform into something completely different, and then it was no longer tasty. That was how the chakra was now. It was already angered, so it had already transformed, and that meant he couldn't eat it.

Samehada stayed back and tried to think how he could get past the attacking chakra. If he could protect himself from the biting chakra, the thin muscle was thin enough that it could not attack him any other way, so he would be safe. Samehada thought, and thought some more. He kept thinking of one thing, but it was something he really didn't want to do. Yet no matter how much he thought, he couldn't think of anything else. He would have to do it.

Samehada twisted from side to side, at first gently, then with more violent thrashing. He shivered, squeezing his insides violently. When something inside felt empty and he grew sleepy and hungry, he knew it was working. Samehada licked all around his mouth with his tongue, resisting the urge to swallow. When he had gathered enough on his tongue, he pressed his tongue against the split shell and spit.

The biting chakra tried to bite, but it couldn't go through the chakra Samehada was spitting against it. The biting chakra relented suddenly, and all the chakra Samehada was spitting out went _into_ the thin muscle. He tried to stop before the thin muscle was killed, but he'd been expecting much more resistance. A pulse of chakra went into the thin muscle and traveled down it, directly into the nest.

There was a sound of releasing air, and a very quiet hum. Samehada jumped back, cringing. Then the lid opened. That hum… So there _were_ little arms pulling the lid back after all!

Samehada raced forward and leaped into the water before something could go wrong. He shivered at the wonderful goodness of having water between his scales. _Good good right yes love water. _He drove his tail from side to side and started swimming. _Swimming! Moving is good! Like swimming. _The Red Cloud Humans were nice, but he had spent _far_ too long dry! Samehada swam in circles through the tank in joy.

The lid did not close. Either Samehada had only given it enough energy to open the lid but not close it, or he'd accidentally killed the poor thin muscle before it could close the lid. _Hope it isn't dead. Dead is no good. _Dead things did not have chakra, and not having chakra was not good. At the end of the day when Human Cousin was near, he promised to remember to check on the poor thing, make sure it still had chakra.

_A promise… The tank…_ Was this familiar? Samehada stopped and wondered if he'd promised something before. _Thinking Human! Promised to tell Human Cousin about Thinking Human giving chakra. _Samehada snapped his teeth and promised not to forget this time. He would remember to tell Human Cousin what Thinking Human had done.

Right now, he had cousins to greet! Samehada swam down to a spotted Cousin and waved his fins in greeting. She changed course. Greeting accomplished. Samehada wished they could have more complex conversations than just sharing greetings, but he didn't hold it against her. How would she understand his thinking? She'd never been out of the tank since he'd known her.

He exchanged greetings with the other Tank Cousins, swimming alongside them and waving fins before changing course. He was surprised at how good it felt to greet them this way. He greeted all the humans with noise, never with swimming. Samehada wondered how he could invite Human Cousin to swim with him. Maybe if they swam together…

A sound of joy echoed through the water. _That sound! _It was a small human, grabbing the hands of two larger humans and pulling them up to the tank. Her eyes were glowing and her mouth was wide open, even as she huddled against the legs of her two guardians. She hid her smile and looked shy, but never stopped looking at him. She said some things that Samehada couldn't make out, then "Shadow." The shark lolled his tongue out of his mouth. She had dark hair that the light reflected off of, and dark skin so that she always appeared to be in shadow. They looked alike.

Samehada swam closer as if he recognized the name, turning away before he got too close so she wouldn't be scared. He went to a rock and hid himself under it, checking to see if the little human was still watching him. She was. A large cousin passed overhead, and Samehada came up from the rock as if he was emerging from its shadow. The little one made more joyful sounds and stopped acting shy. She held her guardian's leg with one hand and reached out as far as she could with the other. Samehada swam close to the glass some distance away and turned to pass by right in front of her, a very small distance away from where her little fingers ended.

She gasped and pulled her fingers back, as if she had felt his scales brushing against them. Her guardians smiled and talked to each other, saying something about "Shadow." Samehada liked his new nickname. He swam directly beneath a larger cousin for a while until the larger cousin grew annoyed, then started swimming acrobatically. The little one kept her face pressed against the glass, fear forgotten.

Another little one arrived, this one loud and fearless enough to scream "SHADOW!" at the top of his lungs. Samehada thought back to before Human Cousin had taken him from the tank. Had little ones called him this before? _Don't remember. _He hadn't been paying attention. Samehada opened his mouth wider. Now that the tank was no longer a bad place to be, he would pay a lot of attention.

The little one's cry brought other humans into the big room, and Samehada swam more and more enthusiastically. This feeling was Very, Very Large, just like the other one had been before. It was mostly joy. Samehada had done it. He had made his way into the tank and proven Human Cousin correct to trust him and think of him as being the same. And now, these little ones were looking at him with shining eyes, trusting him just the same. Same was smaller than most of the other sharks, and he was darker, and he liked to hide away in their shadows. Maybe these little ones saw themselves in him.

With _his_ choice and _his_ strength deciding Samehada's place in or out of the tank, the tank was a very good place to be.

.

**A/N: Gawwwwwww...**

**Ahem. **

**So we've got an octopus character now. Lovely. It's really very easy to write a story when characters insist on just showing up and offering themselves a part.**

**Speaking of parts, it's about time Same got a starring one. He deserves it. **

**In case it wasn't clear, "little metal arms" are smaller versions of those mechanized things that open doors sometimes, the ones that really do look like arms. When seen on doors or larger things, they definitely aren't little, but Sammy imagines that all motors have a similar appearance no matter their size. "Thin muscles" are wires/cords. **

**Have a happy August!**


	57. What We Owe To Each Other

**A/N: Yes, that's a reference to The Good Place. It's a good show, which raises a lot of good points. I like thinking, which is why I like Naruto and The Good Place, because they make you think.**

**I'm not feeling very talkative today. Just wanna go back to bed.**

**.**

**Hidan**

"Never thought I'd qualify as a hurricane."

The patch of forest they stood in, indeed, appeared to have been devastated by some kind of nasty storm. Hidan looked in all directions, eyes scanning the destruction. As far as he could see, the only solid evidence that this forest had not been hit by a storm was the fact that all of the severed and nearly-severed branches were cut in straight, even lines. That could be easily overlooked, though. The reek of sap, the splinters embedded _everywhere_, and the soft crackle of branches about to break and tumble to the ground could easily leave one blind to such little details.

Konan pulled him to one side as the soft crackle graduated to ominous cracking, then to the whooshing sound of free fall. "I should have known better than to fully trust Kakuzu's reports," she mused. "Kakuzu's original complained of the low lethality of your original's attacks many times, and I rarely saw your original fight for myself. I overestimated the truth of his claims, it seems."

The fallen branch finished settling to the ground. Hidan went over and attempted to push it aside enough to free the rope of his scythe, which was trapped beneath it. "Eh, that's different. Just 'cause I can ruin all kinds of property and plants, that doesn't mean I could hurt a person. People can dodge."

"True," Konan acknowledged. "Perhaps I am overestimating it now." She sighed. Hidan could feel a warm ball of respectful awe in his gut. "That doesn't change the validity of the lesson. I still most likely underestimated your original based on Kakuzu's reports. His original was very destructive; entire forests and buildings were often consumed by his fire and wind jutsu. He may have been biased."

Hidan snorted. "Ya think?" He pulled the rope out from underneath the far end of the branch, muttering curses as he did so, and retrieved his scythe. "This was nice, but that was only the first one to come down after a delay. Let's get out from under the death traps."

Konan nodded and they turned to leave. Something splintered behind them. "Was my answer sufficient?"

"Yeah." Hidan stroked the top blade of his scythe, looking back at it as he did so. "Kind of. I still don't get how _*creeeaaaak*_ he could've been trying to aim for something small and mov _*crash*_ ing, and yet _*whump*_ not bothered to learn how to control it better. A. moving, and B. he was trying to be _not_ lethal, right? Don't you need more control to manage that?"

Konan committed this spot to memory. It was just as well for Hidan to have destroyed so much wood now, when it would have time to dry before they needed it. She had little idea of how much firewood was used over the winter in this area, but it couldn't hurt to have some. "I'm sure he kept it firmly in his hand when fighting civilians and basic criminals. Remember, even for non-immortal shinobi, losing an arm still falls within the shinobi definition of non-lethal."

Hidan was silent. _Sounds like my kind of people. Durable enough to take a play fight, fierce, like to draw blood… Kakuzu would let me pounce and play with him, even when he had fake memories. I need to thank him. _

Konan looked sideways at him. "It's a gift," she whispered.

"What is?"

"Your strange sense." She gestured to his heart. "Your original was never inclined to human interaction, nor was he very good at it. Your social skills are much better. You have also been forced to get along without hurting others your whole life because of having to feel their pain. I'm sure it's been very valuable in helping you adapt to this world."

Hidan's ear twitched. "Yeah. You want to know something?"

"What is it?"

He scratched his head. "Promise you won't say anything."

"I promise."

_Here goes everything. _"Um.. So… It's not how it looks. Me. I'm not. I'm not a cat."

There were several seconds of hesitation. Then, Konan said, "That's all?"

Hidan blinked. "Huh? What the fuck does that mean?" _It feels like she understood that was important, but then why the fuck would she ask? What _does_ she mean?_

Konan realized how her words could be taken. "My apologies. I didn't mean to trivialize you. I was expecting your words to be more impactful than they were, and they were not very impactful because they weren't a surprise."

He looked at her. "They're not? How?"

"I've wondered what I am before as well. Living in a shinobi world, surrounded by brutality, the answer was simple: I am a special kind of human, a shinobi. But what are you, in a world where shinobi don't exist? A hunter. Rather violent. Appreciates blood and chasing. It makes sense that the closest example you could find would be an animal predator. I wondered about that too before I discovered what being a shinobi meant."

Hidan stared. _She...like me… _"But… Wow… But…" He shook his head. _Focus! _"Thanks!"

Konan nodded. "Of course."

"But what about everyone else?" Hidan looked away from her and frowned. _That can't be what being a ninja means. She said Moonlight's a ninja, and he doesn't hunt. She said Sunshine's a ninja, and he's the total opposite. _"How the fuck can those two be ninjas - or anyone else - if that's a ninja? What the fuck?"

Konan hesitated. "Well, there could be different kinds of shinobi. Protectors and attackers, perhaps."

Hidan's frown disappeared. "That makes sense. Yeah, protecting's what they do. So attacking's what we do?"

She nodded. "It makes sense."

"You came up with that out of your ass just now, didn't you?"

"My idea of what shinobi are has been recently upset and I am still trying to find the answer myself. But yes, that answer did appear out of nowhere."

Hidan elbowed her. "Good fuckin' answer."

"Thank you."

He opened his mouth to say something more, and just then his phone rang. _We're in the middle of a conversation here! Important shit! This had better be a big fuckin' deal. Of course, given the past week… _The odds that it wasn't a big enough deal to be worth the interruption were nearly minuscule. He grumbled halfheartedly and accepted the call. "Yeah?"

A deep growl came from the other end of the line. _Shit. Definitely a big deal of some kind. _Hidan shared his end of the call with Konan. She sighed and whispered something about it being time for something new to crop up.

"**You**," Kakuzu growled, "aren't done causing trouble for us yet. I am not happy."

Hidan and Konan looked at each other. _Another demon? Same kind or different from last time? _"Whaddaya mean, Kakuzu?"

"Would you care to explain why vampires are angry with you now?" Kakuzu asked. "Because I don't care if you do. Explain."

Hidan looked around, but saw no human figures. "Vampires are mad with me now?"

Silence. Konan leaned in and said, "That was a genuine question."

Kakuzu sighed. "Of course it was." Hidan gritted his teeth. _Why has he been like that lately? Disappointed and irritated in me, just for asking a question? _Hidan didn't recognize the tone from any past experience of his. Nonetheless he hated it. _What the fuck did I do? _He **hated it**. If he continued thinking about it, his eyes would start to tear up from sadness and other, nameless things. Hidan turned away from that voice. _Fucker!_

"I found an article about some 'lobbyists' on the computer," Kakuzu told them. "Said 'lobbyists' got land development to the west shut down partway through, and they've arranged some other land deals which would be suspiciously beneficial to a nest of monsters needing somewhere secretive to hide."

Konan tilted her head. "There was already a lot of development in the area where I woke up. A store, with faded signs outside."

"Exactly. Why let that much get set up, but push through a bunch of regulations killing the chances of anyone actually living there? If you already know there are vampires, the whole story reeks of them."

Hidan ended his silent meditations. "So what about me?"

"I looked into what else this group of lobbyists has pushed for, and I found something _interesting_," Kakuzu told him. "Aside from property deals, they're trying to control hunting now, and other kinds of human disturbance to the forest. They're looking to get it protected somehow, so nobody can enter and leave all willy-nilly. They aren't making any headway because they have no good reason why this should happen, so why are they even trying? What can be so important that they want to close off access to the forest?

"That's when I remembered the demon girl, and how you're the only person I know who really depends on the woods. You hide there, you live there. Everything I can think of points to you." Kakuzu's next words were spoken in an ominous growl. "What reason could there be for that?"

Hidan saw the pieces link together, but the picture they made didn't make any sense. "I...don't know."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Kakuzu's voice was quieter, as if he'd expected to be disappointed. "There has to be something. I'd rather not find out what when _my neck_\- "

"Kakuzu." Konan pronounced his name crisply. "That's enough." She took the phone from Hidan's hand, running her hand down his forearm as she did so. "Remember what I told you."

It took a while for anyone to remember what she was talking about. After a couple of minutes during which Hidan calmed down, Kakuzu remembered that he had previously spoken with her about Hidan. "As I recall, you told me not to spread gossip to anyone else," he said.

"That is what I said." Konan's voice remained cold even as she acknowledged this. "I told you not to spread your conflict with Hidan to others. I _also_ told you that I would like to consider you an ally in _our_ shared quest to understand more about him. Apologize."

She took Hidan's hand and held it. He held it back. _She did that? She really asked him not to make anyone else talk to me like that? _Tears of a different nature welled up in his eyes. He gripped Konan's hand harder. She responded in kind.

Kakuzu grumbled, but not hostilely, more as if he was dreading something. "I'm not good with apologies," he began. "Especially when I don't really feel them. I don't want anyone else to pull me around and get me into trouble I never asked for."

"Who did ask?" Konan countered. "Is Hidan really to blame, Kakuzu?"

"Who else?" Kakuzu snapped. "I wouldn't be in this group of lunatics if not for him."

_Something's wrong. _Hidan felt like a shaken bottle of soda. One more second, and he was suddenly nauseous. _Something's really wrong._ He felt strangely disconnected, as if he was on a movie set. He should've known this would happen. It was in the script. _Who am I? _It didn't really matter what he did; this was his part. Of course he couldn't belong with other people. Did he have a choice? _What did I do? Or...was it me who did stuff? Who? _He shivered. _Why does Kakuzu hate me? _It was inevitable that he would. Everyone would. Wait...that didn't make any sense. Why would it be… Hidan forgot what he had been thinking about. All he knew was that he should be angry. _I didn't do anything. _But not even his thoughts could muster the righteous indignation he knew he should feel.

"Kakuzu!" Konan sounded pissed off.

"I have never _once_ had any idea why I bothered, except for some weird obligation to him. When the hell did I ask to be obligated? It's not like I adopted him after finding him on the side of the road."

_How did I end up on the side of a road? _Hidan didn't know. _Why did I end up on the side of a road? _Now that, he did know. Somewhere. He could feel the truth lurking somewhere within his knowing like a deadly shark. _I hate those words! _He clutched at Konan's hand; he was close to breaking bones in it. _Help me! _

"Kakuzu, stop this." Konan's voice was suddenly dialed all the way back, almost conciliatory, as if she sensed the danger too. "Stop. There is no need to be hurtful."

"I'm just stating the truth," Kakuzu declared.

"No, you are stating what you perceive to be true, and that is not the same thing." Hidan's throat was dry. He hoped Konan could save him from having to be looked at that way, talked about that way. If she couldn't…

"It isn't?" Kakuzu put on his most skeptical tone. "So I didn't declare myself unwilling to be here? I haven't had more than a fair share of complaints about the ridiculousness of what goes on here? I haven't been endangered by a demon? I must have hallucinated the entire past week, apparently."

_What about me? _Hidan still didn't want to believe he was hearing all this. He still wanted to believe the danger he didn't want to name could be averted, that Kakuzu would not reject him. Weren't they friends? Hadn't Kakuzu let him be who and what he was with less judgment than he would have gotten from anyone else? Hadn't Hidan been about to thank him just a few minutes ago?

Konan's heart raced. She knew she must protect Hidan. She must. "Do not conflate Hidan with everything else. He is not the demon. He is not me. He is not your own disbelief and inability to handle the existence of chakra."

Kakuzu growled at the last sentence. "I am _not_ unable to -" He cut himself off. "No, but he is the one who made all of that into a problem for me."

"He is not worthy of blame. He did not lead you astray or attack you." Hidan's eyes teared up enough for salt water to drip over his cheeks. _I wouldn't. I'm not bad. I'm just here. Why is he mad at me for being here? _He was helpless to do anything. Kakuzu would think what he did, and Hidan couldn't do anything about it. But maybe Konan could.

"I'm not sure the distinction matters." Kakuzu's voice was calm. Hidan stifled a sob. In the state he was in, the stifled sob seemed as loud as a gunshot. Hidan did not hear the birds around them, nor the insects, nor the rustle of leaves in the breeze. He did not see the sunlight dancing over limp fallen leaves. He did not see the branch he stepped over.

He saw a road. The road was cool against his backside, because he had only just sat upon it. _There were leaves too, right? _Yes, there had been leaves.

These memories and this awful feeling could mean only one thing.

_I ran away because of voices like that. _

"I'm not sure this matters." Konan struggled to keep her breathing under control. She had to do something. Something! "You can say what you wish over the phone as a disembodied voice, and it doesn't matter. Come here and say the same things in person, with your eyes and your arms and your heart as well as your voice. Then I'll know if you're even telling the truth." That was the last card she could think of playing. Before anything worse could happen, she ended the call. It took several tries to hit the right button. Konan wondered why she was feeling dizzy, and realized it was because she was holding her breath.

She and Hidan took a break beneath some trees, getting their breaths back. Hidan kept wiping his eyes, unable to stop the flood of fearful tears. Konan curled around him to offer comfort.

"I don't want to," he whimpered through stifled sobs.

"I know. I will do everything I can." Konan had no idea what he didn't want to do, but it did not matter. She spoke automatically.

"I don't want to lose everything 'cause I was here."

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "You will not." It was true. He certainly would not lose her.

The idea that she was willing to stay with him even if they both lost everyone and everything else should have been concerning. Konan should have been worried at this uncharacteristic willingness to give up the dreams she had held onto since childhood. She should have been worried about herself, but she was not, because Hidan needed protecting. He wanted her to stay and help him, so she would. That was the only option. She would be there with him, heart, mind and soul.

Hidan stopped wiping at his eyes quite so much, and quieted down to sniffles. _Yeah, I won't. She's right. I can do this. I can get a different part. _There were others besides Kakuzu. Surely Yahiko and Nagato would never turn on him? That wasn't like them at all. _Okay, I'm safe. I don't need help anymore. _

Konan blinked. Her concern for Hidan faded. She wondered why it had been so strong. What he had said about losing everyone and everything was worrying, but one argument with Kakuzu couldn't cause that. She didn't even know what Hidan had meant by that, although at the time it had felt like she did. She frowned. It was difficult to remember what she had just been feeling and thinking, not because she had memory problems but because she couldn't understand any of it. It felt unpleasant to be unable to understand herself. Something strange must have happened.

Hidan's eyes finished returning to their usual pink, a change neither of them had noticed. "He didn't mean it, right? He's my friend. I need to thank him for shit."

Konan nodded. "Yes. He'll have to accept my offer if he wants that to change."

He rubbed his nose on his sleeve. "Okay." They stood up. "That fucking scared me!"

Konan nodded again. "I know. You said something like that was what you feared before."

Hidan shivered. "This is different, though. Bad. Worse. I… I think I might've run away from shit like that." He winced and rubbed his head. "I don't remember anything from before running away. Crap, what if I forget everyone I know _now_?"

Konan's eyes widened. "You will not do that. I won't allow it." The fear that she felt this time was entirely her own. She needed him to be with her in this venture. Without him, she could easily imagine the Akatsuki falling apart. Then she would be alone, and worse, she would have failed. How would she ever uphold her vow to lead the way to peace if she couldn't even maintain harmony among 10 peaceable coworker-friends? She also wanted to keep the ones she cared for from being mortally hurt, and if what he said came true she would have failed in that goal as well. Just like she'd failed to keep Yahiko safe before.

Hidan shook his head. "No, fuck that shit, fuck it, go away." He pushed those terrible thoughts aside. They never helped anyone. He didn't see the purpose of them. Instead of dwell on fear any longer, he looked around, noticing for the first time where they were. "What the fuck? When did we get here? How?"

"We walked."

"Oh." He reached for the pocket where he kept the sheet recording times when he had lost his memory, then stopped. "I don't think it's a memory thing. I remember Kakuzu talking, but I don't remember seeing anything during that. Maybe I was freaking out too much."

Konan tugged on his sleeve. "We'll get you somewhere comfortable, and you can talk about it there. Let's go."

**Kakuzu**

_That was odd. _

Kakuzu could not remember ever hearing Konan as upset as she had sounded, and Hidan hadn't jumped in to argue his case at all. That was unlike both of them.

Well, thanks to an argument he couldn't counter, it seemed he was going to have the opportunity to ask about it in person. Unfortunately. Kakuzu glared at nothing in particular as he stormed into his kitchen. His grievances were legitimate, and for sharing them he'd had even the new Stoic Konan leap down his throat. Kakuzu's hand curled. If this was the amount of respect he got, he wouldn't play this game any longer. It was no fun. All of the wonderful high of achieving a long-term project was completely gone, used up in arguing against people who did not give a crap how he felt and who only wanted to use him.

Too late, he remembered his fridge was gone. _Oh, yes, I thought it was a good idea to give it to them. I was an idiot. _He crossed his arms and tried to think of it as a lesson learned. Better he sacrifice a fridge to learn it than his life, which was starting to look like a very realistic price.

_That's another entry on the list of things I have against him. After everything I've ever done for the ungrateful little pussy, he hands off our argument to his girlfriend? Really? I wanted to tell him I'm fed up with his dragging me into danger, and now I don't even know if he stuck around to hear it or just walked away whistling. Little bastard. _

Kakuzu was in a bad mood, and he wanted someone to hear it. Unfortunately, the only people that came to mind had already joined her side. _Some friends I have. _Kakuzu swung his arm at something he had not yet knocked over, doing an excellent imitation of being angry and not at all disappointed. When it finished falling and silence resumed, he sat down with a thump in front of the same TV he had watched lion cubs play on years ago. Hidan had nuzzled his shoulder and swatted at his hand. And Kakuzu had not cared, had even enjoyed it, because letting young Hidan chew on his hand hadn't called down _fucking demons_ on his head.

He left the TV alone and found some other room to sit in. _Perhaps I was a little harsh. _It was true that he continued to have a grudging respect for the little survivalist, even now. Hidan was right about a surprisingly high proportion of things. But that shouldn't have stopped Kakuzu from making his own decisions, and yet it had. It had stopped him from deciding not to remain in the vicinity of a woman he'd known to be trouble from the first moment he looked at her. Kakuzu hated to think he might be that susceptible to dependency on anyone. _So what if he livens things up? I've had enough liveliness. I've been around him long enough to make my own anyway. _

Kakuzu ignored the thought that he might be deceiving himself on both counts. He wasn't going to give up what little control he had over his life to someone he did not trust, he wasn't going to pretend he approved of everything those children did, and he wasn't going to be counted as one of them if being counted as one of them meant being eaten or wiped from existence. He wasn't going to be one of _anything_. He was going to be himself, Kakuzu, and everything would be simple. He was going to get what he paid for and nothing more. Nobody was going to be paying for things on his behalf. He would be judged solely for himself, solely for what he could control.

He would do all of those things even if it meant giving up the few people he did trust. Even if it meant being nowhere near when they inevitably ran into some kind of trouble. Kakuzu knew that one of the best ways to get pulled under and drowned was to reach in to save someone else who was drowning. _Put it that way, I sound kind of selfish. _

He closed his eyes and pulled inward, trying to be alone with his own thoughts and nothing more, but damn if that memory of playing with young Hidan didn't keep resurfacing. He was getting nowhere. Kakuzu never once considered the possibility of another person helping him with his thoughts. Instead, he stood up and headed out to get a drink.

**Deidara**

Deidara was sitting on Sasori's workbench, thinking, when Laurie broke into his thoughts. She sat next to him and asked, "You okay? I've never seen you so quiet."

The blond turned his hands palmside up and looked at them. The mouths on his palms both looked tense and worried. He made them relax. "Yeah. I'm actually doing better than I have in a while, yeah. I'm just thinking of this idea I had, yeah."

Laurie elbowed him. "Me too, for a while now. You can tell me what it is. Promise I won't laugh at you or tell." She crossed her fingers.

Deidara grinned and called Stitchy over. He put the spider in his lap and stroked his back as he began. "It all began with Stitchy…"

He described his adventure with Hidan the previous night, which now seemed an eternity ago. Towards the end, Deidara had to bite his tongue several times to keep from making digressions into his own past. _I should not be a storyteller, hm. _He finished with his and Hidan's unspoken promise, and decided not to immediately explain everything in a storm of details and anecdotes from his past. Instead, he asked, "So that's what happened. Any questions?"

Laurie raised her hand. "So, it sounds to me like you were just now thinking about how to help your friend? Is that right?"

Deidara blinked. "Um, no, actually." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I thought of something after that, when I was lying on the bird, yeah."

Laurie nodded. This was a natural continuation of the end of the story, so Deidara really had no idea why he hadn't just continued. "It was really vague then, but I've been thinking about it more and more directly ever since, yeah. I think, if I want to try and help someone, I should be serious about it, yeah?"

Laurie said, "You look serious to me."

He shook his head. "No I'm not. Hidan decided he was serious like, instantly. He went out with her to get a uniform the first time he could. Did I tell you this group she wants us to be in has a uniform?"

Laurie looked very confused. "Wait, you're already in a group. What do you mean, wants you to…?"

Deidara rubbed his chin. _She's kind of right, but kind of not, at the same time. When everyone was learning their techniques and Sasori smiled and said he would stay, I thought it'd be easy and we'd get together like she said, hm. But it's not easy and we haven't yet. So what _have_ we done? _

"Well…" he tried to explain. "It's kind of, and kind of not. The thing is, it's not simple like that, hm."

Deidara heard the sound of a lightbulb flaring to life. "It's not just us, it's her too. The whole group thing is her idea, and she's the one who told us about the uniform and everything, yeah. So officially deciding to be part of this group and get a uniform and everything is the same as deciding to be loyal to her, which few of us are really comfortable with doing, yeah. The rest of us hang out together fine, but it's a lot harder to make it something serious, because that means tying ourselves to her. A lot of people get along with each other but not with her."

Laurie held something invisible in front of her, trying to sort out exactly what he was saying. "So, there are two groups. There's the one you all have without her, and there's the one you all have with her? And you want to be with her, but that's going to pull you out of the other group somehow?"

"Yeah, like a Venn diagram, hm." Deidara added a third hand to her two. "On this hand, there's the people who aren't comfortable with her. Here's the people that are, on the middle hand. And there's her. The people who aren't comfortable and the people who are are in one circle, with a pretty solid boundary that says she's not a part of that. And the group of her and the people who like her is in another circle, with a weak boundary that makes things kind of tense and weird when you're with someone who doesn't like her."

"Ohhhh," Laurie said, and dropped her hands. "I get it now. Kind of."

"I don't know which group Sasori's in," Deidara realized. "So, I don't know if things'll be tense and weird if I get a uniform, yeah."

Laurie opened her mouth, but had little to say, so she closed it. Then she thought of something and opened it again. "Ask him. He's pretty straightforward, so he'll tell you if he can. You're thinking of doing this to help her, right?"

"Yeah." Deidara brushed his ponytail to the side. "I feel like it's really important. I think I want to do this. I've never helped anyone before, but I want to try. I've never...done a lot of things. Important things. I've never really made a decision like this." He brushed his fingers through his ponytail. "I'm really nervous, hm."

Laurie grinned. "Oh come on! You have helped before."

"I didn't choose to, yeah."

"Don't think too much. You'll be fine." She hugged him. "I get that this is a huge commitment for you. You have to rethink your friendships and everything. It means a lot. But you will be fine." She pulled back and looked at him, faintly blushing. "You've got the cutest spiders in the world, and a bird that doesn't ask any questions if she needs somewhere calm to be, and your eyes are really open and earnest. She'll know that you want to help. You're brave, and she can trust you, and…" She shrugged and looked down, still grinning. "You'll do great. He won't be mad," she whispered.

Deidara tried to remember if anyone had ever said such things about him. He could not. He swallowed and looked down, still fiddling with his ponytail. "Well… It's not gonna be that easy, yeah."

"Why not?"

Deidara chuckled. "I have to find someone else with a uniform to get it made! It's a pretty custom design, hm."

Laurie punched him in the arm. "You sure about that? At least one person has gotten a uniform made already, right? If it's that custom I'm sure they would remember how to make it."

Deidara nodded. "I just really, really want to leap in, be a part of something, try to help," he said in a rush. "I've never done that before, and I want to be needed, I'm not really a kid anymore. Maybe it could help me feel better in general, maybe that's why some things don't feel right…"

Laurie shrugged. "I don't really know what you're talking about, but yes to everything you said."

Deidara looked around and wondered when Sasori was going to arrive to pick up his stuff. "Yeah, I don't know exactly what I'm saying, either. I just want to be a part of something, like Hidan wanted to be. He does really well there, yeah."

Laurie nodded in acceptance again, and he remembered what Hidan had insinuated. _She's really helpful, hm. And pretty. Yeah…_

A pleasant silence descended, to be broken a few minutes later by the muffled sound of footsteps.

.

**A/N: Deidara is actually a much better storyteller than me in person. I am persistently unable to bite my tongue and _not_ wander off into confusing digressions like he does. He is too a fine storyteller.**

**Oh boy. I hope Hidan can repair things. This is worrying me.**

**Laurie's seriously awesome. I don't know what I'd do without her. All of these people here are just really good to work with!**

**This has been a stormy past week (literally). See yall next week!**


	58. The Fight

**A/N: I don't think I ever explained why I have these double notes on every chapter. It's because Author's Notes written in bold, prefaced with A/N, with two of them at the beginning and end of every chapter, is the format that was used in the first story I can recall seeing notes on. It was a KakashixIruka fic called _The Greatest Thing You'll Ever Learn_, which I read only a few months prior to publishing the first chapter of this story. I had read other stories from other fandoms before that, and not a trivial amount. But I don't remember any of them having author notes, and I remember it being new information when I learned what they were from the above-mentioned fic. Odd.**

**I've recently been watching a show called Lucifer. I've been really enjoying it. Its take on the devil and how angels work is different than my take, but some of their ideas are very interesting. More importantly, as the show is all about characters interacting, I love the characters and find them heartwarming. I'm about to finish season 3, so I can say for sure that the first 3 seasons are super cool by my standards.**

**I have no idea why I'm talking about any of this. Both subjects are a little time-delayed. Ah well.**

**.**

**General**

Kakuzu swept his eyes across as much of the bar as he could see, looking for vampires or demons. He'd done this 45 times over the past several hours, and he knew it was a futile effort. The demons and vampires presumably all looked like regular people. Only Hidan could tell them apart if they did not reveal themselves. Kakuzu growled. Even this had to remind him of Hidan!

He checked the time again and focused on his next moves. He had to leave very soon. It was several hours since his phone argument with those two, and Kakuzu had been sitting in the bar for all of them. He was not drunk; odds were good this was the same bottle he'd ordered several hours ago. So what was he doing here? _Definitely _not_ hiding from having to face him. _

The bottle seemed to mock him. Kakuzu contemplating smashing it just to have something to break, and realized that was why it seemed to be mocking him. Hidan had gotten fed up with Kakuzu's slow drinking and smashed the bottle not very long ago. Kakuzu closed his green eyes and sighed in a very controlled manner. Perhaps he was hiding. It was only natural that he would see so many reminders of Hidan, since they had so many memories together. How could anyone look a friend they'd known for decades in the face, and say the things he'd said over the phone?

It was a good strategy for Konan to force him to do so. Kakuzu had to admit that he couldn't do it.

Because of his own reluctance, he was going to have to be civil, and with civility came a chance for reconciliation. The odds were getting higher every minute Kakuzu's anger faded that he was not going to be able to muster the rage to break away like he had hoped. But, wait, wasn't reconciliation a good thing? Did Kakuzu really want to be angry?

A spark of anger reignited. _I wouldn't have this many questions if it wasn't for that little bastard. _Kakuzu reached out for the first time in half an hour and grabbed his bottle, downing the rest of it in one gulp. He got up, left money, and stormed out. This much anger would have to do. It was already too late for him to be comfortable with. If he waited any longer, others would show up in time to be dragged in to the confrontation, and Kakuzu could not allow that to happen. He wasn't going to ghost anyone, and he couldn't stand the thought of dragging anyone else in. No matter how unprepared he was to yell at Hidan in person, it was now or never.

.

Hidan chewed on his hand. He noticed this hand was starting to lose its taste, so he switched to his other hand. He didn't have any idea what he was going to do or say. The revelation of why he had run away was too upsetting; he hadn't been able to think or plan about anything else. His mind kept running away to imagine what and who he had been before. _Maybe I was unhappy? If I couldn't handle knowing other people's feelings and no one could help me manage it… _He spun himself a whole mental movie of a misunderstood young boy lashing out, using his knowledge for bad purposes, and realizing it was a mistake when nobody would look at him kindly anymore. Hidan paused to take note of the pleasant taste of his skin, and then returned to thinking. This time, he spun himself another story, of a boy who was perfectly kind like he had been when Kakuzu first found him, but who hadn't had the good fortune to be surrounded by ninjas who understood strangeness, so he'd been chased away. Had he run away, or had he been chased? What role did his parents play? Hidan knew that there were several terms for people who forgot their previous lives and started over as a different person. Maybe it was one of those? How and why had he received those disappointed words and rolled eyes? Was it because of his extra sense, or some other reason? What else could it be?

The world was a dark gray haze. Hidan couldn't feel his arms, but saw himself holding these different scenarios, as in a dream. He remembered that he was breathing. The scenarios were different colors. The colors were important, but he had no idea why. He watched one scenario, then another, and they blurred until they looked the same. He couldn't muster the mental energy to make a decision. He didn't try. If he could have thought about how he felt, he might have compared it to hanging suspended in deep water. He continued to stare blankly at the images in front of him, not thinking any more. He didn't recognize who or what was in them.

"What are you thinking?" asked a voice from out of the darkness.

Hidan blinked. The darkness disappeared, and he forgot all about it as he regained full consciousness. "I can't," he said. "I can't think!" He turned and sat on one arm of the comfy chair, not looking at Konan watching him from the other arm. "I've had _so many fucking questions_, and now I get a tiny little glimpse, but I just have more questions! Do you have any idea how big a deal it is to know why I ran away?!"

Konan allowed herself a small smile. "As if you've learned why God sent your soul into this body, at this time, in this place?"

Hidan closed his open mouth and blinked slowly. _Huh. It kind of does feel like that. _"How'd you know?" he asked.

Konan smiled again. He looked at her as if she was a genius. It was amusing. "It wasn't hard. Your questions are about what happened before you existed, to result in your being here. Anyone can have questions about that."

Hidan raised a finger to point out, "But I'm talking about why Previous Me did what he did, not why -" He waved a hand in the air uselessly. "Whatever. You get it."

Konan nodded. Cautiously, she said, "Actually, I think it might be the same."

"Yeah. Whatever." Hidan scratched his head nervously. Then, out of nowhere, a great idea occurred to him. "Hey, y'know, I'd never be able to let it go if shit happened and I didn't thank him. I should start with that."

_Interesting. He gave an affirmative answer. Perhaps his human side was not the side that made this decision, which would explain why he doesn't remember. _Konan filed this away for further consideration later and returned to the immediate problem. First and foremost, she had to protect Hidan. "Do you mean Kakuzu?"

Hidan nodded. "I have to thank him for everything. Definitely, 100 fucking percent. I should get it out of the way first so I have a chance to." He then checked his phone. "Crap."

"What is it?"

"4:30."

"Others will arrive soon…"

Hidan put his phone back and scratched the back of his neck with special fervor, pushing it to the brink of bleeding. "That means he'll show up right about...now?"

.

Kakuzu hardened his right forearm and hand and brought them down on the outside wall of the hotel, channeling a brief burst of vicious glee as he did so. _There. That should get his attention. _Kakuzu checked to see how much damage he'd done - he'd tried to be careful - and, after seeing that he had not pushed the building substantially closer to falling down, placed a foot on the wall and ran up the side towards the roof. There was _no way_ he was going to be any nearer that demonic symbol than he had to be, and if voices didn't get raised there was a good chance they might finish uninterrupted even if others did arrive and enter the building below.

_On the other hand, that __**thing**__ pisses me off. It could give me a useful boost. _Kakuzu still hadn't decided if, in the grand scheme of things, he really _wanted_ to be angry with his longtime friend, so he didn't know if this counted as a reason for or against meeting on the roof. _Dammit. Things were a lot simpler before I had all these 'other people's feelings' to worry about. _No burst of anger accompanied this thought. Kakuzu realized that he didn't know what he wanted to happen. _Shit. First rule of making a deal: have firm plans for what you want to get out of it. Dammit! How am I going to get a fair deal out of this now? _

Hidan's hand appeared, grabbing the edge of the roof and swinging the rest of his body over in the same place where Kakuzu had swung the rest of _his_ body onto the roof. "Kakuzu!"

Kakuzu was still in a unstable and dangerous place negotiation-wise, so he wasn't surprised to find all of the skin on his body hardening. He braced himself for annoyance and possibly even anger, or maybe tears and pleading. The one thing he didn't brace for was a hug.

Hidan's grip didn't falter, even as Kakuzu froze and did not respond. Hidan simply readjusted his grip to compensate. "I got something to say before you say anything," he murmured into Kakuzu's shoulder.

Because Hidan's hug was Super Effective, Kakuzu stayed silent, as requested. Hidan pulled back and forced his hand to pet the top blade of his scythe instead of his own head. His scalp was beginning to complain about the rough treatment. He looked up into Kakuzu's face, almost but not quite meeting the older man's eyes. He didn't want this to turn confrontational. "Thank you."

Kakuzu blinked and stayed frozen. Hidan smirked and went on. "Had to get that out before you ruined the moment. I was thinking earlier of how normal people - sorry, I mean the NPCs. Though, actual normal people would qualify too… Fuck! I'm getting off track! Anyway, they're super delicate.

"You remember when I was learning about how to interact with people and stuff from lions? I chewed on your hand, and play-fought and wrestled. You even let me stalk you sometimes." Hidan's face softened at these memories.

"I know nobody else would have let me. Nobody else would put up with play-fighting or being chewed on, because you can only do that with others who can take some punishment, and who get that it's all play. Others like you. Like me?"

The last part came out as a question because it was one. Hidan's brow furrowed. Was it true? He knew Kakuzu was _more_ like him than a normal person would be; that was why he had thought of thanking Kakuzu. But was Kakuzu really _like him? _Did they really understand each other that well?

Kakuzu's brain caught up to itself and scrambled to process what was happening. His skin softened as the protective technique wore off, and he studied Hidan's face. Was this true? Did Hidan think they were really alike? _Were_ they alike?

Konan sat off to the side and waited for them to answer the question. She had no place just yet.

Surprisingly, Kakuzu was the first to answer. He muttered, "Before I looked up the vampires, I was putting the final touches in place to ambush a target. It felt _good._"

Hidan's tongue poked out of his mouth. "How big is it? Juicy? Tasty-looking?"

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "None of those things. He was an irrelevant pest. I was just going to enjoy tearing his little setup apart and seeing what, if anything, leaks out."

Hidan paused. This did not fit the scenario he pictured in his head. He changed the scenario, reimagining it in a forest instead of an open savannah. "Can he bug you?"

Kakuzu snorted. "Not a chance."

Hidan could get behind that. The joy of a hunt so well-planned that the prey didn't even notice until claws were sinking in… Hidan preferred a good chase, but he also enjoyed a good stalking. It was nice to have any part of a hunt be particularly good. "Fuck yeah!" He was proud of Kakuzu. _I have got to hear about what he was doing. Sounds really interesting and tasty. _

Kakuzu crossed his arms and tightened his fingers to make himself focus. _So maybe we are a bit alike. So what? I'm here to make a deal, not get touchy-feely about good times. _He called back his sense of unfairness, his sense that he wasn't particularly respected or valued and that others thought they could manipulate him. With this at the forefront of his mind, he sincerely believed the previous conversation with Hidan no longer affected him.

Hidan labored under no such pretensions. He grinned and said, "So I guess that means -"

"Shut up, and let's get to the actual point." Kakuzu glared.

"Um… Fine. Dickface." Hidan crossed his arms too and pouted. "Way to ruin a good moment."

"Not that good," Kakuzu countered, "considering how inconsiderate you are. You drag people around any time you want, for whatever purpose you want, and for the love of me I have no idea how. I do know I'm sick of it. I'm sick of going along with your plans, for no apparent reason, and without you bothering to _pretend_ to be apologetic. If this is something Other Us did, which I gather it is because she knew enough to weaponize it against me already, I don't want to have any part of it. This ends. I won't be controlled by anyone."

Hidan's arms fell to his sides. _He's accusing me of not caring about him? Why? I never wanted to do anything like what he said. _He opened his mouth, but saw one of the scenarios he'd imagined earlier flash across his mind's eye. _Even if I never wanted to, did I? Is that why I ran away? Am I really hurting him? _

"I…" Hidan's teeth clenched as his mind raced back over every memory he could recall. He had always pushed and pulled Kakuzu, hadn't he? Kakuzu had rarely encouraged Hidan to do anything he objected to, but he'd gotten Kakuzu to do things he wouldn't have done all the time. Was that a bad thing to do? But he had never meant any harm, and he would never have dragged Kakuzu anywhere if he'd felt the slightest bit of real fear or worry or hurt. He didn't remember feeling any of those things, nor did he usually pick up resentment. Hidan felt sure he would never have aimed to manipulate or hurt his oldest friend. "I never meant to."

"So you admit it." Kakuzu's voice hit Hidan's spine like ice.

"That's not what I meant!" Hidan struggled to articulate what he _did _mean. "I would never hurt you or make you do anything that you couldn't do or that you wouldn't like. It always felt fine. I never picked up any pain or fear from you, and you were fine with whatever I suggested! I just like getting you to come out of your shell and have fun!"

Kakuzu uncrossed his arms, balling his hands into fists. "_Really?_" he said with as much caustic sarcasm as he could muster. "Would these, by any chance, be the same feelings that were mixed in with all of yours? I didn't know you could magically filter out all of _your_ fun and _your_ excitement to get a perfectly unbiased reading. _Of course _your perception is entirely trustworthy and reliable; how could you ever have any need to listen to my very words when you already know everything that's going on with perfect accuracy, better than I know myself?"

Hidan leaned backward. That was true. It was how he maintained his own personality even in a crowd; his own feelings did not get washed away, still dominated his heart most of the time. Had he really ignored Kakuzu? "I…"

"I'm not finished," Kakuzu growled. "And now, you go around cozying up to everybody, but especially to someone I've _never seen before_ who thinks that she can order me around despite that. And she can, through sheer force I haven't yet learned to counter. You get to make rules and give out orders now through your _friend_, and trade off whenever you don't feel like having anyone call you or her on anything you do. I can't be certain you even heard a damn thing I said earlier. For all I know, you handed the phone over to her and walked away whistling. _Nice_ way of avoiding me."

Konan shot to her feet. "My aim is to protect him," she told Kakuzu as she walked over to stand by Hidan's side. "Your words were very hurtful, and I will not allow him to be told such things. Do you have any idea how much pain you cause?"

Kakuzu glared at the both of them, but especially at Hidan, who was once again not speaking. "I'm not going to sugarcoat the truth just because he doesn't want to feel like an asshole."

Konan held her tongue. If Kakuzu was speaking honestly, her continued presence would not help matters. She stepped back to stand beside Hidan, and waited for him to speak on his own behalf.

Hidan felt tears come to his eyes. _Fuck...shit… He…_

_He's right. _

"I'm sorry…"

Both Konan and Kakuzu turned and stared at him. Konan stared because this was ludicrous. Hidan didn't deserve half of the accusations leveled against him!

Kakuzu stared because this was unexpected. Was it unexpected good or unexpected bad? He had never heard Hidan apologize in this way for their entire association.

Hidan wiped his eyes. "I...I guess… If you say it's bad and shit, then it is. I didn't think so, but… I guess I don't really ask you to say anything, and I do kinda brush your complaining off as you being a grump. I'm sorry."

Konan held her tongue again. She had unofficially (and perhaps officially at some point) allied herself with him and promised to stand by his side, so if that was the truth he wanted to accept she had to support that. She didn't remotely believe he deserved blame for anything. But even so, she held his hand and kept her opinions to herself.

Hidan squeezed her hand back. The feeling of her being there to help him was a great relief, and helped him regain control of himself. He finished wiping his eyes and looked at Kakuzu, almost but not quite meeting the older man's eyes. "So, since I haven't for a while, I should ask now. What do you want, Kakuzu?"

For once, the stitched-up ninja was at a loss for words. Silently, he considered the question for a while. Hidan waited. Eventually, Kakuzu shrugged. "I suppose it's simpler than it seems," he said, quieter than he had been before. "Firstly, I don't want to be controlled. You are actually correct." He glared as if to say _But don't take that to mean you're not at fault. _"It is true that I have never been seriously discomforted by anything you have asked me to do. I do actually enjoy most of it, somewhat." He held up a hand. "But that does _not_ make it any less rude to constantly interrupt my routine. I _like_ my routine. I like not having my stable life torn to tatters just as much as I like the occasional few hours of fun."

Hidan nodded. "Secondly," Kakuzu continued, "I don't even know how you manage to drag me off to half of these things. Why the hell did I agree to practice with these repulsive threads and use them to fight a demon just because _you_ asked me to? Why does dragging work for you? I don't understand my own actions sometimes. If I don't have even that much control over myself, it does become...worrisome. I have to wonder who does."

Hidan nodded again, but swallowed. What could he do about that? "Lastly," Kakuzu said, "thank you for asking."

Hidan blinked. "I...yeah. You're welcome. I can ask more."

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "You'd better."

Hidan patted the top blade of the scythe. "So, I shouldn't drag you off so much anymore, and not without asking first. That's it? If I do that, you won't talk about me like I'm disappointing?"

Kakuzu tilted his head. "I don't talk about you like you're disappointing."

"Yeah you do." Hidan's throat closed up, making speaking difficult. "You get all annoyed when I can't remember something, and sometimes you look at me like you're only willing to accept me and my stuff because I'm useful or fun." He sniffled and allowed more tears to drip down his cheeks. "And when it's not, when demons are mad at me 'cause of something I didn't do and don't know about, you get mad at me too. I didn't do anything! It's like you think that _I'm_ trying to hurt you, that I'm a bad thing that's bad, when I don't want anything to happen to anyone and I don't know why demons hate me and I'm not bad! What did I actually do?"

Kakuzu squeezed his eyes shut and huffed. "Do you have any idea how annoying it is for you to act in strange ways and never provide an explanation for it? I am simply forced to go along with you, and have no ability to predict what you'll do next or figure out what the hell's going on."

"So am I!" Hidan whined. "I'd love to have an explanation. My entire fucking life is going along with things. I'd tell you what I was doing if I knew."

Kakuzu glared. "That helps me how?"

Hidan looked away sourly. _It doesn't. That's my fault how? _

Kakuzu then muttered, "Besides, your memory loss is too precise to be believable. It only ever seems to affect the important questions. Lucky us."

Hidan couldn't believe what he was hearing. _What? Does Kakuzu think I'm a liar? _His mouth hung open, and he stared down at the leaf-strewn white roof. The very first thing that Hidan had ever said to him was "I don't know," when asked what he was doing on the side of a road. Kakuzu didn't believe that was real? All of it, every time Hidan had ever shivered at something on TV and not known why, all the times they had sat down and tried to puzzle out the meaning of yet another bizarre sentence, and then later chuckled at how incorrect their guesses were if Kakuzu was able to find out what it really meant… He believed that wasn't real? That they hadn't really been searching for answers together?

He took a breath (it was difficult to breathe), and voiced this aloud. "You think everything was fake?" _You think I'm fake? _

Kakuzu refused to be swayed by accusations and guilt trips. He said levelly, "I don't know what to think."

Hidan had no idea what to do or say. What could he do or say? He couldn't take Kakuzu into his mind and point to all the holes. He couldn't prove an absence. If Kakuzu thought he couldn't be trusted, then he wouldn't trust any protest Hidan tried to make.

There was only one thing to do, and that was get off of this topic. Hidan took another breath, and was grateful that it came easier than the first. "I was probably chased," he decided.

Kakuzu sighed. "Are you going to explain what _that_ means?"

Konan stepped in front of Hidan. "I will," she offered. "Later." Her amber eyes glowed dangerously, and little expressions came more easily to her face than before. "I must ask. If you don't believe he tells the truth about his own experiences, why did you bother talking with him at all?"

Kakuzu realized he should not have said what he said. "I don't think he lies in what he says. It's what he doesn't say that's suspicious. The rest is mostly accurate, I'm sure."

"_Say?_" Hidan's voice rose to a high squeak. "It doesn't matter what you think about I say. What about what I do? All those times we talked about what I might've meant by something I couldn't remembered saying, you thought I wasn't really enjoying making fun guesses? That I wasn't really laughing, that it was just an act because I wanted to watch you be confused? Walking away from parties or certain places because someone said something that hurt for _no reason _that I can remember, was that an act?"

His voice turned distant in the space of a second. "You think that I was faking you out for _sympathy_ back then, that time when everything was horrible? I spent months shivering and huddling and holding my head, which _hurt like a bastard_, and you took care of me, and you think I wasn't telling the truth about it? That I wasn't really hurting, and losing over half my memory, and that I didn't really need food and shit, and that I wasn't really grateful?"

Hidan wiped his eyes. "I can't even remember if it was one month or more because I was losing so much time. Wake up on Monday, spend a few hours on stuff, then you visit and tell me it's Friday. It was… was… the worst!" The loss of so much time was what frightened Hidan most about what he had experienced after 9/11. He knew people were in pain but he couldn't help, and on top of that he hadn't been able to help himself. He hadn't been able to even be himself. He'd known as an absolute fact, during the whole experience and forever after, that he was not in control of himself. This was terrifying to know. Kakuzu, who'd listened to him the most, was denying that terror?

Hidan discovered his anger. "I know I've messed up. I've disregarded what you say a little too often, and I haven't asked for it nearly as much as I should. But you're doing the same thing! I can't do stuff and I don't have any control, _which is just what you want for yourself,_ and you're not going to bother to help me? You don't know why you do stuff? Why do _I_ do stuff? Why'd I have to go through that shit? What the fuck was stealing whole days from _me?_ You don't care about what I want or need at all!"

"So I'm supposed to care for the both of us?" Kakuzu shot back.

"I want consideration! I'm not fucking lying when I say I don't remember stuff and I don't like it!"

"Neither am I when I say that I don't want to pretend I trust people I do not trust! I don't pretend."

"I don't pretend either!"

Konan turned to the side and jabbed both of them in the chest with her fingertips. "You two really _are _alike." Her tone indicated this was not a good thing. "Neither of your originals ever got along with anyone else. Original Hidan was headhunted specifically for his immortality because Kakuzu would get angry and fight with his partners, and Hidan would do the exact same thing if he was with someone he could reasonably overpower in battle. You don't get along with others, you fight when angry, and I'm sure neither of you have practiced empathy or trust for a long, long time.

"Now, both of you have a substantial advantage over your originals. You have both been raised in a world which trains you to at least try to get along with others, and Hidan's power and what it has forced him to do make up for his original's complete lack of social skills.

"What held the old Akatsuki together was a rigid power structure." Konan looked between them, distress tinging her voice. "The leader was the most powerful person in the group, and all members were dangerous enough that fighting each other would have been risky even if he hadn't used threats of force to break up disputes. Partners were matched at least as much on the basis of battle power as on personality. Peace depended on battle being too dangerous.

"That is no longer the case here, because I am not as powerful as Nagato was. Distribution of battle power can no longer be counted on for stability. You're on your own to solve your disputes with your own social skills, or lack thereof." She glared at the both of them. "That said, the boost this world has given to your social skills is the greatest advantage you have over your originals. Disregard it, and weaken yourselves.

"Both of you, take the rest of today to settle down. Work to overcome your shortcomings, and practice consideration, because it sounds like both of you are bad at it. Kakuzu, your desires do not come before those of others. Hidan, you understand what beasts desire and how they think better than you understand humans, and your power does _not_ make up for that entirely.

"Any questions?"

They had none.

"Very well. Hidan, go. Kakuzu, stay."

Hidan nodded and ran past Kakuzu, towards the forest. If he had known before the argument that Kakuzu was predatory like him and enjoyed hunting, he'd have been so much more interested in what Kakuzu did and so much more eager to hear about it. Konan was right. He related a _lot_ better when he could understand someone as a fellow hunter.

Kakuzu turned to watch Hidan go, but stayed as requested. Konan was right. He hadn't depended on anyone in a long, long time. Even her command to understand that his desires were not more important than others' made sense, because now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember wondering why Hidan would have passed the phone to Konan instead of speaking for himself. He'd just been angry at his desire to yell at Hidan being thwarted. Kakuzu turned to Konan and raised an eyebrow.

Her face was still once more. She turned to face him directly. Kakuzu unfolded his arms and admitted, "I'm impressed. You located the source of our problems."

Her eyes narrowed. "Naturally. My powers of analysis failed before. I have practised judging the nature of things ever since to make sure they do not fail again." She stepped closer and stopped much too close for Kakuzu's comfort. Her eyes blazed into his, making him want to take a step back. She still loomed far too well for someone shorter and smaller than he was. "Do you know why I invited you to stay?"

Kakuzu wisely did not choose to comment on her misleading word choice. "I assume you have more to say to me."

She nodded once. "As I said before, my objective is to protect Hidan. At this point, I see only one thing he needs protecting from."

She went on to explain, "Earlier, when you called, I spoke for Hidan because he was unable to speak for himself. I asked you to remember what I had said before. You remembered one thing, and I reminded you of another. But there is a third aspect of that earlier discussion which you evidently did not remember and which I did not remind you of. Do you recall _why_ I asked you not to spread your conflict with him to others?"

"'What he fears will surely come to pass if you are loose-lipped,'" Kakuzu quoted.

"Precisely." Konan edged forward, making him lean back even more. "What he fears was exactly what you threatened him with. To be disregarded, to be unable to be with anyone, to have nobody think anything positive about him. He did not speak because he was paralyzed with fear, because he could not face the previously unspoken assumption that you believe everything that's happened is his fault for merely existing, that his existence alone is a bad thing. The worst possible thing is for his existence to genuinely be a bad thing of itself, or at least to be perceived as such."

Kakuzu blinked, and his eyes widened. _I was threatening him? I thought he was using me for his own ends and that I was merely righting the balance, but _he_ was the one feeling threatened and unable to assert himself? I used his very worst fear against him, too. _He finally realized the true meaning of Konan's words. When she'd said he was being hurtful, she meant _hurtful_.

Konan leaned back. "One last thing," she said. "After the call ended, he told me that the extreme emotions had allowed him to recover previously buried memories. As you spoke, his reactions to what he heard included fleeting impressions of leaves, and a cold roadside. These were clearly memories from before you met him, when he was running away. We were only able to think of one explanation, and that is that he ran away because of similar words and treatment in his previous life.

"If so, he has very good reason to fear being treated harshly again." Her eyes narrowed viciously. "Hidan wondered if he ran away because he was seeking something or because he was chased away. If he has decided he was chased, that means he feels these words are a mortal danger capable of ending his life. My goal is to protect him. If you speak to him in this way again, it will be just as if you were slashing at him with a weapon, and _I will consider you an enemy_. I don't wish to, but I will if you act like one. Don't force me."

Having said her piece, she turned and left. Kakuzu stayed where he was, frozen to the spot. Unconsciously, all of the mystery and speculation over the decades had built up Hidan's previous life, and the reason why it ended, into something monstrous and all-powerful. The discovery of a piece of the monster was enough to shock Kakuzu's mind into inactivity. That it resembled himself? **More horrifying than the symbol in the basement.**

Eventually, he mustered the strength to crumple to his knees, and sat. What had he done?

.

**A/N: It may not be too late.**


	59. Now To Relax

**A/N: I planned for a quick once-over of how everyone else was doing before moving on. It turned into this. Well, as the title says, at least we now get to relax with some of the lesser-featured characters.**

**Oh, yeah. I said I finally figured out what Nagato's day job is after 50 chapters with not a clue, and here it is!**

**.**

**Itachi**

Today was a bust. Itachi's new fear of being out in the open was not going to go away quickly, nor was it easy to push through. Once again, Itachi had spent a good part of his day at the aquarium, as well as sitting in the park, feeding ducks at the park's pond, and getting roped into a game of basketball with strangers. Itachi was not particularly talented at basketball. He had the stamina to easily keep up and was quite fast, but those were his only advantages. The Sharingan might have enhanced his aiming to the point of making him unstoppable, but Itachi had not used his Sharingan. That would have been cheating, and it would have been un-normal when what he wanted was a normal, restful game with basketball enthusiasts he didn't know. It was good to be neighborly.

He couldn't hide in the company of others forever, so he obviously had to resolve his problem. Itachi wondered what to do for his neglected instrument in the meantime. Until he found a solution, perhaps he could take paying jobs at parties and such. Or he could simply play somewhere that more people passed by, where he would not feel so exposed. Itachi liked his position outside the south gas station, though. It was a place with few expectations attached to it. Who expected anything surprising at a gas station? So Itachi played there, in a place that would transform his music from something to ignore (as it would be at a party) into something with the power to transform someone's day, at least for a little while. No; he could not take paying gigs. Playing wasn't his job. It was a way he thought he could benefit people.

That was why it was less than completely surprising for Nagato to approach him as they entered the hotel lobby together. Itachi didn't know what he was going to ask, but they thought similarly. He planned to agree.

Nagato looked around and did not see Itachi's guitar case. "Still too exposed?" he asked.

Itachi nodded. "I'm considering playing somewhere else until I can resolve the problem."

Nagato grinned. "In that case, I can help. I was just about to ask if you would mind helping out with an upcoming event."

"What kind of event?" asked Itachi as they moved off to the far side of the room and sat.

"I work with dogs," Nagato explained. "At the shelter. Do you know it?"

Itachi nodded. He had never thought about where Nagato worked, but now that he did, the shelter for lost, abandoned, or just plain abused dogs was perfect for someone like Nagato. "I do."

"We do events sometimes where we bring the dogs to people. It helps them get out more and socialize, and the people love it!" Nagato's eyes shone. "One of those events is being planned now. The location hasn't been fixed yet, but it's going to be somewhere community-oriented, where kids or older people can meet them and have the dogs help them. I had a dog a long time ago, so I know how they can get you through hard times."

Itachi couldn't help but smile. "You think I could be part of this."

"I think I can ask." Nagato shrugged. "If you're not officially allowed, I'll keep you updated once we get a location so you can be conveniently nearby."

"Thank you." Itachi meant it. He was glad for Nagato's company. They had understood many things together.

"Did I ever tell you about Chibi?" Nagato asked.

"You have mentioned him," Itachi said. "Undetermined breed, smartest little mutt you ever met, seems like he'd been sent to meet you. You're very sure he went to Heaven."

"Of course." Nagato was **sure** of some things. One of those things was that Chibi was in Heaven, and the other was that Yahiko was headed the same way. "I wish you could have looked into his eyes. Or just glanced. If you acknowledged him at all -"

"You'd see his soul," Itachi finished. "We had a conversation once where you casually mentioned that you believed animals have souls, because it was self-evident to you. Just an observation to make, the same as saying that mammals have fur."

"How could they not have souls?" Nagato reasoned, "They are living beings that feel and want things and interact, just like we do. They have hurts they remember, and hopes. They're people just like we are. Ergo, there definitely is a Heaven for animals. It probably looks different and has different amenities, but it's Heaven all the same. If there isn't a Heaven for animals, then that must mean Heaven doesn't exist at all, so there isn't one for humans either."

"Humans are animals, so our Heaven is just another variation," Itachi said.

Nagato laughed quietly. "We've had this exact discussion before, haven't we?"

Itachi chuckled. "I think so."

Nagato put a hand on Itachi's shoulder. "Hey, why don't you go wait in the kitchen? I'm gonna get something from my room." He went to do just that.

Itachi entered the kitchen, where Sasori and Yahiko were already talking with each other. "You're a genius!" Yahiko exclaimed. "For really small wounds, strings would definitely help! How do I make them?"

"You just gather chakra in the ends of your fingers…" Sasori demonstrated. Yahiko tried several times. The third time, most of the strings coming from his fingers broke up, but 3 remained intact and attached to the knife he was attaching them to. Yahiko was delighted.

Sasori ducked his head as he grinned, more happy then Itachi had ever seen him. "I hope you don't need it," he forced out. "But sometimes you can wait for things to circulate, and other times you need to get a needle directly in the heart. I've seen doctors do that on TV."

Itachi blinked. This moment was incredibly significant. Was he the only one to realize it? The Sharingan activated, and he studied both of their faces. No, it seemed as if neither of them had realized it. This was the first time any of them had taught one of their techniques to someone else. _It won't be the last. If Hidan's idea of dissolving genjutsu in water can be used, and I help Yahiko do so, that will mean teaching Yahiko how to use genjutsu. _Itachi realized a group of this size, with such different abilities, was a treasure trove of options which any one of them could dip into. They weren't more powerful together than apart solely because of communication and teamwork. Every individual person could broaden their abilities. Itachi was staggered at the significance. How had he not realized that before?

"Itachi? Are you alright?" Sasori had noticed Itachi staring, and the Mangekyo Sharingan activated. Itachi deactivated everything and shook his head.

"Do you realize, that is the first time we've shared techniques with each other?"

Both of them took a few minutes to trace their whole history of using jutsu. Yahiko did so aloud, whispering, "We demonstrated them, then I was with Nagato on the lake and he copied me, but he could already use water and we were just tossing it so it doesn't count, then all the stuff with the demon…" Neither of them could remember teaching another one of their techniques at any point.

"This changes everything," Sasori exclaimed. He looked as stunned as Itachi had. "What else can we do with this?"

"How about combining techniques?" Itachi told him. He moved to stand next to Yahiko. "Nagato and I came up with an idea for how I can use my powers, _without _hurting anyone. With Hidan's input, we realized it might be possible to dissolve genjutsu in water. I still can't figure out how to use my powers myself, but I could help improve others'."

Yahiko's eyes widened. He looked at his hands, then at Itachi. "What can genjutsu do?"

Itachi admitted he wasn't sure. He would need a full explanation of what genjutsu was and how it worked before he could invent new ideas of how to apply it. Yahiko said Kisame had said something about a guy who wanted to collect full explanations. "It's a good thing someone is willing to do so now," Itachi said. "This is exactly the point where we need such a thing."

Nagato appeared. "I don't know what you were just talking about, but it sounds good so I'll ask later." He handed Itachi one of the rocks he'd painted. It was smooth, flat, almost the size of Itachi's palm, wedge-shaped, and brown-black. Its upper surface had been painted a pleasant shade of purple which matched the hue of the rock's natural color, and in the purple a crescent moon had been drawn with a bird's silhouette next to it. In blue were the words, "Peace is here."

Itachi looked at the rock for almost a minute in silence. After a decent time had passed, Nagato decided it was appropriate to speak. "I don't know your tastes exactly, and I have more rocks to paint, but of the ones I've already gotten to this one looked like it suited you the best."

"I like it very much," Itachi agreed. "Silence and contemplation is what I prefer."

"Thought so." Nagato waved the others over to see the rock. They agreed it was very nice, and just Itachi's style.

"I also like the message," Itachi told him. "The world is not bad; there is already peace and goodness to be found. I've always found focusing on the good that already exists to be very inspiring."

Nagato beamed. "I was so proud of that one. I've already taken a picture of it to share; you can keep the rock." He could barely speak through his smile.

Yahiko came to stand next to his best friend. "It makes sense," he said.

Nagato waited for him to elaborate, but Yahiko said nothing more. "Um, what does?"

"I don't know." Yahiko shook his head. His eyebrows were drawn together in confusion. "It's...another one of those things I don't really know how to say."

"What is?" Sasori asked.

Yahiko sighed and started to fiddle with his hair. "I don't know how to say that either. The moon, it… It makes sense, why it would be on this rock." He shook his head again. "It makes sense that you would have drawn it there," he tried again, speaking to Nagato this time.

Nagato waved for him to go on. "It makes sense that I would have drawn the moon…"

Yahiko waved as if to encourage himself. "Because I can't see you drawing something bright."

Nagato's brows bunched together too. "What? I can draw something bright and cheerful just fine. How does that even make sense?"

"I don't know. I just thought of it? I _can _see you drawing something bright, but not really the same…" Yahiko's shoulders slumped, and he pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead. "Someone else could say it better than I could."

Nagato nodded. "It's alright. Someone's bound to have noticed the same thing if it was really obvious to you."

"Thank you for the design." Itachi nodded his head in the same polite way that Konan did, before finding a pocket to put the rock in. Nodding politely was a quiet gesture; he preferred it over more typical ones, such as a smile. He was going to thank Konan for introducing them to this.

Nagato blinked and turned away from Yahiko. "Hey, Sasori, I just remembered something. It's actually from when Hidan and Deidara had that fight. I thought of some things I wanted to do, but then the fight interrupted everything. One of them was talking to you."

"About what?"

Nagato looked around, but did not see Konan anywhere. "It's about one of my weirder powers. She said that the thing I can do where I control dead bodies works because…"

He explained to Sasori everything she had told him, including that the rods appeared to tap into electrical networks and convert his chakra to electricity. By the time he was done, Sasori's eyes had a faraway look the others were coming to recognize as the look he got when he was planning something in his mind. "Yes," he replied in a distant monotone, "that's what I was thinking of…"

Nagato shrugged. "Great! I thought it might help with something, since you're the only one I know who uses electricity." He looked around again. "She has a rod I made. I'd rather not make another one."

"You should have one from when we were talking in the basement," Itachi reminded him.

Nagato shivered. The reminder was not a welcome one. "Creepy."

Sasori came out of his planning and looked between them. "How long were you two friends before she threw us all together?"

They both looked up and thought about it. Yahiko answered Sasori with "A long time" as they did so.

"A couple years," Itachi eventually guesstimated.

"Sounds about right," Nagato confirmed. "We agree on a lot of things, so it might seem longer."

"Only that? It seemed longer to me," Yahiko said.

Itachi told him, "I'm quite sure it was only a couple of years. I had already been in town for some time, and we talked about how I missed my little brother. I remember clearly that it had already been long enough that I was having trouble remembering what Sasuke really looked like, which was only a few years ago."

He fell silent. _Sasuke… He was still little the last time I saw him. His face must have changed so much. How could I ever recognize him? I hope he's doing well in school. _

Nagato coughed. "Yeah. It's been really nice. Anyway, I should go find Konan and see what we can do with the rod." He punched Itachi lightly on the upper arm and left.

Sasori elected to wait for Nagato to come back, instead of returning to the shed right away. He helped Yahiko practice making more chakra strings. Itachi shook himself out of melancholy thoughts, but the damage was already done. He pulled a seat away from the table that was now in the middle of the kitchen and moved it to the corner, where he could sit and silently observe.

From this vantage point, he saw Nagato return with Konan. They left, taking Sasori with them and leaving Yahiko alone. Yahiko guessed that Itachi might not appreciate being talked to and continued to practice with his chakra quietly. Itachi was grateful.

Kakuzu came in and sat at the table, and Itachi's Sharingan automatically activated. What was this? He looked rather...stunned. Even Yahiko noticed, but Kakuzu recovered some of his typical stoniness whenever the younger ninja tried to ask him what was going on. Itachi looked closely, but could see little, except for a rather obvious attempt to hide some great upset.

Kisame came in and immediately asked why Kakuzu was looking so dazed. The room went silent. Kakuzu's shoulders slumped. "Argued with Hidan," he admitted. Itachi saw a host of negative emotions pass through the region around his eyes. Was that guilt?

Konan came back without Nagato or Sasori. There was still no sign of Hidan. She requested a meeting in the backyard, saying it was for the purpose of sharing good news. Itachi met Yahiko's glance. If there was good news to be shared, why had nobody heard it from Hidan?

Kisame, who was about to talk about his day, bared his teeth. He had the same question.

**Sasori**

Konan led them to the closest bedroom so they could sit down. Nagato smiled as they entered. He had good memories of hanging out with Hidan in this room. It was a little worrying to see that the blankets and sheets looked completely untouched since that night. They were dusty around the edges, too. Had Hidan _ever_ changed them?

Konan moved to the far side so they could all sit in a triangle on top of the bed. "This is an interesting idea," she said. Her eyes kept losing their grip on anyone's face, and her voice did not sound interested.

Sasori waved a hand and said, "It was just obvious. People of this world don't use strings. Even if we didn't need to fight, I still wouldn't use them just because it would be embarrassing. Remote control is how things work now. If your technological masterpieces could be beaten by a group of well-controlled _children's toys_, that's a problem."

"But is it workable?" Konan continued where her question had ended, as if Sasori had not spoken at all. "How can a technique that only Nagato can use be useful to you?"

"We'll make a new one," Sasori argued. "He can make the materials. We'll figure out together a way for me to use them."

This caught Konan's attention. Her eyes stayed on him. "The rods are his."

"Yep."

She tilted her head slightly. "How could you use them?"

"That's what I'm going to find out. Unless you know any other remote-control techniques?"

She did not.

"It's settled then." Sasori turned to Nagato. "How do you use this thing?"

Nagato gave the rod to Sasori and had him hold it flat in his hands. He then steepled his fingers in front of him and stared at the rod. "I have to send a chakra signal…" He felt for his chakra, the shifting current of warmth that was just like warm water, and yet went unnoticed unless he deliberately paid attention to it. It was amazing what people could ignore. He channeled the warmth up to the palms of his hands where the rods had emerged.

"This may be difficult," Konan told him. "Your original only ever used this technique after he was injured and placed in the machine, actually. Does it work without the machine?"

Nagato wondered how on earth she could have forgotten to mention a little detail like his original being so badly injured that he had to be placed on life support, but who was he to talk? They'd known each other for a week and a half and had forgotten about possible vampires for most of that time. He refocused on channeling chakra into his palms. He even risked pushing his chakra close to activating _that_ technique, although the idea of actually generating another rod made him shudder.

He winced in the most horrible discomfort he'd ever felt a second later. "Ggk!" He clenched both of his hands, applying pressure to his palms just like he would hold his elbow when his funny bone was bumped. "Oh, _god, _what the _acgk_ is that?!" It resembled his funny bone being bumped, except the feeling ran up and down his whole arm and was much stronger. Luckily, clutching at the area and dispersing his chakra made it go away.

"This rod just vibrated," Sasori reported. "Is this what it does when it's getting a signal but isn't connected to anything?"

Konan stared at it. "It seems so." Then she turned back to asking Nagato if he was all right.

"It felt like hitting my funny bone, except in my whole forearm!" He rubbed his palms together, still wincing. His arms still felt uncomfortable, and he could not see the discomfort wearing off any time soon.

"Like hitting your funny bone?" _That's...interesting. Hitting. Vibration. _"Did it feel like it could have been...buzzing?"

Nagato cringed. "Ugh. _Inside me._ That sounds like it could do it…"

_Vibrating. Metal. Rod. _"Did you...make any more?"

Nagato nodded. "If this is why I can make the rods, then I thought it might be related to the technique that makes the rods, so I made my chakra do something similar."

Sasori smacked the rod he held against the palm of his other hand. "Get the other one. I think I know what to do."

Nagato rolled himself off the bed, still rubbing his hands together, and went to do just that. Konan watched him go, wondered why he would accept a direct order from _Sasori _of all people, then shook herself. There were more important things to wonder about. "How have you figured out what you need to do so quickly?"

Sasori held the rod in one hand and looked down at it. "I've always thought hitting my funny bone felt like having vibrations traveling up and down my arm. When he described it that way, I immediately thought of vibrations, and that led me to resonance." He stared closely at the rod. _Metal. What kind of metal? Is it like iron? _"From that one clue, it's all coming together. If I'm right, I know everything I need to do now."

Nagato returned with the second rod, which he hadn't had any idea what to do with, so he'd stuffed it in a drawer and ignored it since its creation. "What do you need to do?"

Sasori laid the second rod in his lap, and held the first from both ends. He began to channel chakra across the rod from one hand to the other. "Hitting my funny bone feels like vibrations to me, and vibrations lead to resonance. You know how if you play a stringed instrument in a room with another stringed instrument, the vibrations given off by the first can make the second produce sound?"

Nagato looked between the two rods. "Does chakra work the same way?"

"We'll see." Sasori continued to run chakra through the rod. "Is the metal these are made of magnetic? Any relation to iron?"

Konan narrowed her eyes. "I do not know."

"Because if you run a magnet over a bar of iron, the bar of iron can become a magnet itself," Sasori explained. "Running a magnet over it orients its particles in the right direction. This rod was designed to respond to his chakra, but it might be possible to alter it, make it respond to other chakra." He pushed a large pulse of chakra through the rod. It was running more efficiently and faster across the rod's length.

Sasori stopped running his chakra through it lengthwise and held it in one hand. He ran his chakra through it now in no defined course. Nothing happened at first, so he had to increase the flow several times. After several increases, he felt movement against his palm. The rod in his lap did nothing. Sasori picked that one up and started running his chakra through it, too.

Nagato winced. His palms were now merely itchy. On the other hand, _his palms were itchy. _He scratched to make the worst of it go away as he said, "Resonance. Okay. Maybe that's exactly what I was doing - the other rod was just inside me at the time. *_Oh god I am never doing this again._*I hope the other part works, because I _really don't want to do this again._"

"The first one vibrated a little," Sasori said. His restrained smile finally broke free. "It took a lot of chakra, but maybe they'll become more sensitive."

Konan sat still, stumped. Sasori had actually figured out a way to copy Nagato's technique. And he was using one of Nagato's jutsu to do it. For his own purposes. What was happening?

She'd been here for the whole process, and no part of their logic was flawed, really. The method was sound. There wasn't really anything wrong. And yet something about what was happening here, with Sasori borrowing Nagato's jutsu, seemed wrong. It was alien. Who would ever do such a thing? Of course, students learned from teachers all the time, but he was using one of Nagato's rods. That Nagato had produced. Something about this was very strange, and it all felt wrong to her.

"Itachi's a genius," Sasori declared. He was still smiling.

"How so?" Anything to distract Nagato until the itching went away.

"We were talking before about trading jutsu. Itachi said you'd had an idea about combining genjutsu and water jutsu, and I taught Yahiko how to make strings." Sasori's smile faded as he thought. "This is different from that though. Yahiko could learn genjutsu on his own, and use it on his own. This is taking that idea one step further, creating a jutsu that can only be used by two people together." The smile returned and broadened into a grin. "That's even better. Did our originals do this?"

Konan blinked. Her face was otherwise very still. "No." She wanted to say more, but there was a blockage on her tongue.

Nagato waved at her to go on. This released the blockage. "Why on earth would you ever think of such a thing? Why would anyone ever use a technique like that?" _This _was what was wrong, _this_ was what was alien. "Shinobi cultivate their own skills. They compete to be strong enough to defend themselves and their village and country. At all times, a comrade may die. A shinobi must be strong, must have their own power. Why would anyone cripple themselves by becoming entirely dependent on comrades that may or may not survive? That is weakness."

Nagato looked at her, shocked. "It's not weakness to work together with your teammates to unlock stronger abilities! How would he be able to use remote control otherwise?"

"No, no, she's right," Sasori objected. "I'm sorry. I didn't say the right thing." He stopped running his chakra through the rod and waved it at Nagato. "All of us are right. You and I are right, because I wasn't speaking precisely. Needing others to _unlock_ stronger abilities is totally fine. Once I have these rods of yours, they're not going to disappear. It takes two to prepare, but once it's prepared I can use it alone.

"I only realized when she started talking that what I said could be taken as not being able to use some ability alone _at all_. There's a difference between needing two people to prepare and needing two people to _use_. I can completely understand how a skill that _always_ needs two people would be near useless." He nodded at Konan. "You're right. If anyone specialized in abilities that couldn't be used on their own, that would be pretty useless."

"That's what Itachi said." Nagato motioned to the second rod that Sasori was holding. "I created that when I was talking with him. He said that he felt like he wasn't able to be much of a ninja at all because he doesn't want to hurt anyone, but all his abilities are hurtful. The only thing he can do with them is add them to others', which is why we thought of mixing genjutsu with other things. But what you said is exactly his problem."

Sasori's eyes widened. "He has those eyes, right?"

Nagato shrugged. "Yes, he can see more and has better reflexes. But all of his _techniques_ are fire, which we can't use around here, or genjutsu, which is only good for holding someone still or having a meeting."

Sasori nodded sympathetically. "I had no idea he was struggling like that. I'll keep an eye out for any ideas that might be useful to him." _I guess it really is true. The more familiar you are, the more you like. I really should get to know him better. I haven't had the kind of discussions he apparently has with Nagato all the time. _

Konan, too, had not known Itachi was struggling to find an acceptable use of his abilities. The amount of things she didn't know her new teammates were thinking about was worrying. Every conversation revealed something surprising. Despite her role as coordinator, she knew very little of what was going on. How could she do her job with this many unknowns?

It had to stop. "That's it. I'm calling a meeting."

.

**A/N: I originally planned for Sasori to ask about remote control techniques on his own, and then be directed to Nagato, where they would work things out alone. That was before I started writing this down, so I didn't realize how much of a backseat their ninja skills would take to their personal business. So he didn't ask about it, because he's not as invested in building his thing and working with it as I thought he would be, which actually makes the fact that this scene happened pretty much like I planned a minor miracle. **

**Are meetings becoming a thing now? I hope they are. I liked writing the party scene. I'm not really a fan of having characters catch up on things we the audience already saw happen every time they meet. Dunno what to do about that though. **

**Did plan on Konan being impressed by their completely different use of jutsu. Did not plan on her having this much trouble understanding it or being offended by it. I like Konan. She's interesting.**

**Where is Hidan? We might find out next chapter, or maybe not. I haven't written it yet. Muahaha.**


	60. Extraction Team

**A/N: As a story-writing person, I feel it is my duty to avoid changing the story mid-way through reading it, because that's just rude and also bad. Luckily, I haven't! All I've done is correct something that was never true in the first place. Chapter Other Side Of The Mirror has now been corrected: Yahiko does _not_ have a bathroom window. He can't possibly. I have no idea if I'd drawn the little diagram I use to help me know where everyone is, but I probably had, so it's my fault for going with my mental image at that point. Without a mental image of what's happening, I would not be writing this, but I can still criticize it for being inaccurate. Hidan frequently doesn't have a cloak when he should, other characters who don't have cloaks yet do, I can't see his scythe or Samehada anywhere, etc. Curse the inaccurate mental images!**

**Just yesterday, I had the bright idea to look over my traffic stats from the first month until now. It's been fascinating! The views bars grew and spread until March, then they dropped off, and they just recovered their pre-March levels this month. I could not have seen that if I wasn't looking back from a historical point of view. I think some interesting research could be done using the site statistics.**

**Long chapter. Enjoy.**

**.**

**Samehada**

_Thin muscles are interesting. Are there different types? _

Samehada thought there must be. He hadn't noticed before, but now that he had interacted with the ones used to open and close the tank's lid, he saw that the one which helped the lamp make light was clearly different. The others had been larger, with only one per shell, and that shell was thick and dark. It had nested in the lid that it controlled, and it got wider for several inches as you approached the nesting end. The one in Nice Human's room was different. Its shell was flat and looked like it was about to split in two, as if there were two thin muscles sharing a shell. It disappeared into the lamp and nested in the wall, which was the exact opposite of what the others had done. Its shell was thin and golden, and it only widened in the inch right before its nest, looking more like a fancy crest than a real widening of the shell.

Samehada concluded that it must be a different kind of thin muscle. If that was true, should he call them something different? Samehada lifted his tail off the ground and waved it back and forth in the air, feeling his muscles as they strained. They felt long and round, like most of the thin muscles he had seen. But none of his real muscles felt anything like this doubled-up kind that Samehada was licking at. What should he call them then? Samehada could not think of anything else that was long and stringy and could be used to do things, except for muscles.

He poked the lamp's muscle with his tongue. Just like the other one, it did not respond. Samehada wondered if it had the same power. Did this one also use lightning chakra, or a different kind? It seemed he would only find out if he bit through its shell, which he didn't want to do. Nice Human slept here. If Samehada made the thing inside angry, it might attack Nice Human, and he wouldn't know to avoid it because Samehada couldn't tell him.

Someone came into the room behind Samehada. "Same? What are you doing in here?" It was Nice Human.

Samehada gave the golden-shelled thing one more poke with his tongue, just to see if he could scare it. Nothing happened. He warbled sadly. Nice Human crouched next to him and picked up the golden-shelled thing with his hand. "Have you been licking the cord?"

Samehada made a high-pitched surprised sound. They were called "cords"? Yay! He had a name to call them by now, and he hadn't had to go to all the trouble of thinking of something to compare them to. Did this mean his muscles were cordlike? _Funny sounding word! _

Samehada crawled onto Nice Human's back and proceeded to lick his orange hair in every direction at once. Nice Human laughed, then started to protest that his hair was going to look strange. Samehada stopped licking and saw that his tongue had made Nice Human's hair look half spikier than usual, half matted, and all of it was pushed over to the right. He warbled _amusement_ while Nice Human tried to put his hair back in order.

When he was done, Nice Human stood up. It wasn't easy and he had to lean forward instead of standing straight to counter Samehada's weight. "Wow. I thought this would be easier from looking at Kisame," Nice Human said.

Samehada worried more about his length. Human Cousin's back was evidently larger; Same's tail was in danger of hitting the back of Nice Human's knees and keeping him from walking right. For the first time, the shark realized Human Cousin was different from other humans, and the difference probably had to do with being a shark. Other sharks were mostly larger than humans. Samehada was smaller than most of his cousins, but on a regular human's back he felt huge. He dropped to the floor and nuzzled Nice Human's leg as an apology.

"It's okay," Nice Human told him. "I'm just not that physically strong. I see why you get along with Kakuzu - he's probably strong enough to lift you." He crouched down to pet Samehada, which instantly made the shark stop worrying.

He stopped petting after only a few seconds. Samehada whined for more, but Nice Human looked up at the door. "I'm sorry! I'd love to keep petting you, but Konan wants to have a meeting in the backyard, which is why I came here. Let me get my cloak."

Same licked his hand and left the room, making his own way to the backyard. He listened for humans and stayed quiet as he did so. Secretly, he was hoping to catch Human Cousin telling the others about how Samehada had completed a mission all by himself, and Human Cousin had never doubted that he could.

The sky outside was dark, but someone had made another fire on the giant stone. Samehada could only see the fire's glow, not the fire itself, because the back door had a knob. It was biased! Samehada whined. If he was also a ninja and belonged right here with the others, why could nobody except humans use the doors?

Someone heard his whining and came over to help. Samehada tasted their chakra. It was Bird Person. Bird Person was dressed like Nice Human, Strong Human, Knowing Person, and White Claw Person now. Samehada wagged his tail. He was pretty sure that was good. The humans who dressed like that looked happier than they did before.

Bird Person grinned. "Do you think it looks good, hm?"

Samehada nodded.

"Yeah!" Bird Person's chakra was strong and warm, and his eyes were wide and happy-looking. He said, "I can't wait to see what everyone else thinks, hm," as he opened the door.

Samehada wanted to see that too. He raced down the steps and over to the fire, where Human Cousin was telling Thinking Human, "I finally checked after I fed the rest of them, and it turns out the lid's hydraulically operated, _and_ it's opened and closed remotely. I have no idea how he -"

Samehada bit Human Cousin's arm firmly but not roughly, and pulled him in the direction of the back steps. Human Cousin and Thinking Human both looked at him, then at where he was pulling them to. They saw Bird Person. Thinking Human's eyes widened. Human Cousin's mouth dropped open, as if he was completely confused. Bird Person grinned.

"You guys like?"

Samehada chirred a question at Human Cousin. _Why confused? _

Itachi answered first. "It looks nice." He glanced at Kisame with his Sharingan activated.

Kisame felt the weight of eyes on him and closed his mouth. "I...have no idea." What did it mean that Dei was on her side now? Kisame searched himself and found no trace of either approval or disapproval. He no longer had any idea how he felt about associating with Konan. And it wasn't as if he'd thought Deidara was _unlikely_ to throw his cards in with her; he actually hadn't thought anything at all about the blonde kid. Kisame concluded that what he felt was pure, 100% undiluted surprise. He shrugged. That was his answer.

Samehada sensed Bird Person's chakra flicker. Bird Person shivered before sitting down carefully, as if not wanting to get his new clothing dirty, so it must have been excitement. Samehada warbled happily and went over to lick his face in congratulations. Bird Person giggled and said, "Aw, thanks, yeah!" Samehada wagged his tail back and forth and nuzzled Bird Person's shoulder. The blond petted him back, and yawned. After all the excitement, his chakra was starting to get a little sluggish. Samehada nuzzled harder to keep him awake.

Kisame wondered how he felt about this. Was Samehada going to make friends with others and spend less time with him? The thought elicited vague negative feelings.

The back door opened again. It was Nice Human. "Hey, sorry I took a while, I found Same -" He cut himself off when he saw what Deidara was now wearing. "Dei? You -"

The excitement returned, and with it another surge in Bird Person's chakra. Samehada backed off and watched to see what Nice Human's face did. Yahiko's mouth twitched upward, and he smiled as Deidara stood up. Deidara walked over to him and turned briefly to either side, making his cloak shift back and forth. "What do you think, hm?"

Yahiko had no words, so he hugged the blonde instead. Deidara staggered back a step before hugging him back. "Uh… What's this?"

Yahiko gave him one last squeeze, and finally found some words. "Does this mean you're helping?" He stepped back and looked eagerly in Deidara's face, hoping the blond would say yes.

Deidara blinked. "Hidan told you?"

Yahiko looked confused. "Told me what?" He shook his head a second later. "No. Wait, I mean, he told _you_? The three of us agreed a while ago to, y'know, help her with stuff."

Deidara's mouth dropped open. "You did?"

"Yeah." Only now did Yahiko realize they'd never actually mentioned this to anyone. "It was right after she ran away when I came near her, so we knew I was making her feel bad somehow, and wanted to help."

Deidara snorted, then hiccuped, then started to laugh. "So you guys made a secret alliance or something behind everyone's back?" It made sense. _So much sense._ "That's - that's almost what I said earlier, yeah! I was just about to guess that!" He had no idea why this was funny, but it was.

Yahiko started laughing too because laughter was contagious. "Yeah, it is! I didn't even realize!" He punched Deidara in the shoulder. Deidara punched him back, and they silently agreed that this was all hilarious for reasons neither of them could explain.

Samehada chirped delightedly. He didn't understand why anything was funny, but laughing was always a good thing, so he raced over and bumped his head against both of their legs, chirping the whole time. _Good feelings! Yes! Very good. _He was happy because they were.

Kisame's mouth had fallen open again, and Itachi's Sharingan was activated. This was news. Kind of. In retrospect, it had always been extremely obvious that Yahiko, Nagato and Hidan were firmly on Konan's side, as well as each other's. Itachi wondered what he was surprised about. Kisame wondered why Samehada looked so happy. Did the shark want to spend time with her too? As much as Samehada had proven himself to be entirely capable alone, Kisame still felt protective. That was one of his only friends, and he hadn't known her nearly long enough to trust in Konan's stability yet. Even if Same was completely capable, he still acted so _trusting_, it was hard not to think he could be easily taken advantage of…

Nagato and Sasori were conversing quietly with each other as they left the building, but they stopped before anyone could hear what it was they were saying. Sasori shifted the rod he had been running chakra through to one hand and looked around. Even though Deidara had asked for his opinion and he'd known it was coming, Sasori still felt mildly surprised to see the blond wearing a cloak that matched Yahiko's perfectly. Nagato's mouth fell open in a happy smile, and he ran forward to meet them.

"Dei! When did you get that? Why?" he asked. This was a very pleasant surprise!

Deidara grinned back at him. "Hidan kinda persuaded me to try and talk with her more, since we have so much in common, yeah. I had no idea I was joining something!"

"I told him that we agreed to stuff," Yahiko explained.

Nagato stared back at him. "Oh, you mean -"

"Yeah, that."

"Oh." Nagato punched Deidara in the shoulder. "Welcome to the club. We need all the help we can get."

Sasori's eyes narrowed. "What the hell?" He walked up to Deidara. "What did you accidentally get involved in?"

Deidara explained, "Apparently the three of them made a deal to try and help out Konan, hm."

At this close a distance, Samehada could feel Quiet Human's chakra withdraw. Was he upset? Samehada went over to him and chirred questioningly.

"No, I'm fine," Sasori said to brush Samehada off. "I just… Wait, you agreed to this?"

Deidara shrugged. "She has a lot of the same issues I do," he said. "I think I should talk to her, yeah. I'm not making much progress on my own."

Sasori hesitated. Finally, he shrugged. "Okay, if it would help." That was the biggest reason why he'd agreed to join this group in the first place, he remembered. It was because there was nowhere else for Deidara to get the kind of support he needed, for his hand-mouths and his war experiences and everything.

Deidara nodded. "I think it will, yeah."

Kisame beckoned Samehada back to him. The tangle of legs was getting a little dense, so Samehada obeyed. "Speaking of Hidan, where the hell is he?" Kisame asked. "It isn't like him to not be the first to call everyone for a meeting."

Itachi said, "Kakuzu mentioned that he had argued with Hidan, and Kakuzu isn't here either. It may have been a bad argument…"

"Aw man, I was looking forward to seeing what he thought, yeah." Deidara sat down by the fire. After everyone currently in the backyard had done likewise, he asked, "So is this meeting why everyone's out here?"

"Konan called it," Nagato said. "I don't know why. Sasori and I were talking about a completely new kind of technique that our originals never used, so she might have called this to talk about that. It sounded like she was annoyed at something, though. And she didn't say she was going to have a meeting after we first brought up the new idea; she said it after we talked about Itachi. I have no idea why she called this."

"And Hidan and Kakuzu argued, hm?"

Itachi nodded. "They did. Kakuzu was visibly upset, so it must have been bad. What were you saying about me?"

Nagato waved a hand. "I just mentioned what you said before about not being able to use any of your original's skills because they were too dangerous."

Itachi leaned forward and stared into the small flames. "In that case, she might want to talk about the applicability of our originals' abilities in general."

Samehada cried out in dismay. He hadn't heard that Thinking Human felt bad and weak. He immediately rushed over to comfort Itachi with extensive licking and reassuring rumbling. _Not bad. Not weak. Strong! Strong, good-tasting chakra and lots of kindness. Chakra and kindness can't be weak. _

Wait… Samehada remembered how he knew what Thinking Human's chakra tasted like. _Right! Promise! Must tell Human Cousin about Thinking Human's goodness. _He let out a high-pitched warble and went back to Kisame, bumping his head into Kisame's shoulder. When Kisame was looking at him with full attention, Samehada went back to Itachi, and started chewing on Itachi's arm. _Chakra still tastes good! _

Itachi smiled. "Ah, so it wasn't desperation after all. My chakra must genuinely taste good to him."

Kisame turned from his best shark friend to his best human friend. "Itachi? What do you mean by desperation?"

Samehada stopped chewing on Itachi's arm and pulled back, although he couldn't resist giving a last couple of licks. Itachi wiped the saliva off with his shirt as he answered, "I checked on him while you were on vacation. I found him very hungry, and made it a point to stop in regularly."

Kisame's mouth was open again, but this time for a good reason. A pleasant warmth spread through his chest. "You're the reason he didn't starve?" This was something tremendous for Itachi to have done.

"Of course." Itachi smiled at him. "I wouldn't leave your other best friend to suffer alone, would I?"

Kisame smiled back. "I guess not. Thanks."

Samehada wagged his tail and lolled his tongue out. This was good. He liked good things.

Nagato cleared his throat. "That was after your fake memories ended, right? How'd you feel? About Same, about everything?"

Itachi patted Samehada's snout. "It didn't cause me any distress, if that's what you're wondering." He closed his eyes to remember. "I was starting to realize that some things about myself didn't add up. My physical strength did not make sense. Neither did the way I thought, in terms of strategies and tactics. But none of that affected how I saw Same. When I was visiting Same, I felt like…"

What started as a short pause to reach for the exact words turned into a longer pause, then to a break. Itachi's eyes squeezed. He tilted his head. "I...do not actually remember noticing anything unusual about Same," he said slowly. "Nor did I worry about anything else when I was around him."

The others at the fire glanced at each other. It was involuntary, a search for clarity on this confusing idea. After glancing at Nagato, Yahiko blurted out, "Wait, your fake memories came back?"

Oh. Well, that was horrifying. Itachi nodded reluctantly. "It seems...so."

The gathering around the fire turned very, very quiet.

**General**

Then Konan emerged with Kakuzu.

Konan took her place next to Nagato, and Kakuzu sat on the other side of the empty spot where Hidan would be. Both of them narrowed their eyes at the silence. "What is it?" they asked, nearly in unison. Kakuzu leaned back as if he suddenly wanted to be less close to her.

"My false memories and NPC-like levels of awareness came back after they disappeared," Itachi stated flatly. He stared into the fire.

"When?" Kakuzu wanted to know.

"Before, when Kisame was on vacation and I watched Samehada."

"It's very unlikely Samehada actually existed at that time," Konan murmured. "Assuming, of course, that his existence is tied to Kisame. Samehada in my world is a sword, so he can't be said to 'die,' exactly. He hadn't broken or suffered a comparable fate by several months ago anyway."

"Wait a second." Kisame beckoned Samehada back to him. "Do you have false memories like we do, Same? Do you remember anything that doesn't make sense to you now?"

Everything made perfect sense to him now. Samehada had never been one to think too intensively about his life, nor had his life ever been particularly complicated. He shook his head no.

"He seems pretty happy-go-lucky," Yahiko said. "His fake memories might make perfect sense."

"Maybe." Kisame looked up at Konan. "Whatever. I can ask more later. What I want to know now is, why are we out here? And where's Hidan?"

Konan's eyes flicked over to Kakuzu briefly. "Hidan is thinking about some important subjects raised earlier, and we are out here to talk."

"Is he okay?" Yahiko asked.

She replied, "He will be."

Nagato swallowed. _That's good. _How bad had their argument been, exactly? The way she spoke indicated that question was not going to be answered now, so he pushed it aside. _Worry later. _"Um, talk about what?"

Konan paused. "Just... talk."

"Uh-huh." Sasori looked less than enthused by these instructions.

Konan sighed. "It seems as though every time I turn around, someone has thought of something new or is having concerns that need to be dealt with or is planning something. My knowledge of what is happening is falling further and further behind. I simply wish to get to know you all better and reacquaint myself with current events."

"That's a great idea!" Yahiko glanced around. He knew she wasn't the only one who needed to have a better idea of what was going on. But before that, he needed to know more about Hidan's situation. "So, Kakuzu, if you don't mind obviously… What were you and Hidan arguing about?"

Kakuzu threw the tiny end of a twig into the fire without looking up at anyone. "I think he's inconsiderate of me, and he thinks I'm inconsiderate of him," he summarized. "Current consensus is that we're both right."

"Oh." Nagato untensed. He hadn't realized he'd been so tense. "That's all? Something easy to work out?"

Kakuzu grunted. Nagato sighed in relief. "That's good. I'd rather not have to worry about him, though I will anyway, probably."

"Yeah…" Something about this was ringing bells in Yahiko's mind. "Huh…"

Kakuzu turned to Deidara. "Care to explain that?" His tone was distinctly hostile.

Deidara snorted. "I wanted to be a part of something," he declared. "Something actually _real_. Something important, yeah. I want to be involved in things and have the chance to help, yeah!"

Kakuzu's eyes stayed narrowed as he thought. _The kid wants to throw himself into the middle of all this mess? He _wants_ to have to deal with the worst of other people's craziness? Why would anyone want that? _Nonetheless, he was intrigued. _Damn curiosity. Going to get me killed someday. _

"Speaking of possibly helping," Kakuzu said, "I've been following up on that paper." He turned to Sasori. "The idiot wasn't embezzling for personal gain. He might have started out hoping for personal gain, but by the time you get indebted as he apparently was, it's a matter of survival and trying to stay out of the deepest pile of shit. I froze his latest ransom payment. He's not getting out of the heap now."

Sasori's shoulders relaxed. "I wish I could say I was surprised. Deidara's told me how shady some of the workplace practices I put up with really are. It doesn't surprise me that my boss would be into something actually illegal as well."

"Perhaps it's not illegal, but he definitely deals with the wrong people," Kakuzu agreed. "But he should've thought of that before dealing, shouldn't he?" The glee in his voice sent shivers up the spines of almost everyone else. It was suddenly unclear whether the brightness in his green eyes was from the fire, or other sources.

Deidara gulped and looked away. "You and Laurie have a backup plan, right?" he asked Sasori.

"If I can figure out a way to get paid for it, yes," Sasori answered.

Yahiko nodded. "That's always the hard part." As sad as it was, he couldn't afford to be purely generous as often as he wanted to. Practicalities had to come first. _I suppose that's a good thing. It keeps me from being too self-sacrificing, reminds me that I have to take care of myself. Nagato's always said I should take more for myself. _Nagato was thinking the same thing at this exact moment.

Sasori blinked and took a closer look at Yahiko. "Yeah…" He shrugged and attempted a friendly gesture. "Stupid practicalities."

"I know, right?" Yahiko sighed. "I guess it's good to be reminded that I'm a person with needs, but…"

Sasori stifled a laugh. "That's exactly what Other Me was missing! 'Reminded that I'm a person.' I'll remember that."

Yahiko smiled. Samehada lolled his tongue out, which meant the same as a smile in his language.

"Great timing, by the way." Sasori proceeded to explain to Kakuzu how it was entirely too possible that Friday had been his last day working for the auto shop. "I should've suspected something was up when I had that rush of adrenaline on Saturday."

Deidara chuckled. "You think that had something to do with this? How? You're not psychic." He looked startled and turned to Konan. "Are we?"

"It's a known phenomenon to have a feeling of impending bad fortune and to see signs of it just before or when something happens," she replied. "I don't know how it works, but it's not surprising to hear."

Itachi blinked. "We can detect when the universe is about to turn against us?"

"Not reliably, but sometimes, yes."

"Gods above." Itachi wasn't normally given to exclamations of this sort, but did she recognize the meaning of what she was saying? _What could possibly allow humans to know the workings of the universe? Of fate? Luck? The unanswerable could become answerable, and then, will we really be humans anymore? _

"Some of us more than others, probably," Kisame muttered. "How much thinking can he possibly need to do?"

Konan said nothing, just looked at Kakuzu. He rolled his eyes. He understood it was meant to be a courteous gesture not to involve herself in what was rightfully his business, but _he_ was the one who could use some recovery time, not Hidan. _Though maybe that kind of thought's why we argued in the first place._ "Hurtful words were said. Very hurtful. He's recovering," Kakuzu summarized as tersely as he could.

Nagato's shoulders tensed again. "Recovering?"

"Like I said, he will be fine," Konan reassured. "I'll be sure to let him know you are concerned. He'll appreciate your kindness, even if it is from a distance."

"You worry about him a lot," Sasori observed. _Not my business. So not my business. I really shouldn't have said anything. It's so tempting to tease him, though. Just a little. _

"I do that," Nagato justified. "I like to look out for people. It's what I do. What _we_ do." He gestured to himself and Yahiko.

"Huh…" Yahiko did not notice the gesture, involved as he was in his own mind. He nearly had it: the understanding of what he'd been talking about earlier. "Hidan's right." The lightbulb didn't light up all at once, but it took only a few seconds. "He's right!"

"...About what?" Nagato asked.

"About you!" Yahiko exclaimed. "And me. He says you're like the moon, and you are! You have the same personality as the moon! That's what I was trying to say earlier."

Itachi folded his hands in his lap. _Interesting. What is his explanation for this comparison? _"I was not aware the moon had a personality."

"Of course it does!" Yahiko looked up at the mostly-full moon to help him explain. "The moon's bright, and offers peace, and light, and hope. But it's not very forward about it, and it only does so at night when there's nothing else, and it stays in the background. It's quiet. It's not like me. I'm more like the sun, because I like to be a lot more obvious about trying to make things better. I like to really try to get involved, really directly touch other people. I like to be louder and more lively, more _active_, and I never take a break or let someone else do things unless I have to. We trade off, and…" _And I sound like I would burn myself out if I didn't have him to trade with. Is that what Konan was worried about? No; that can't be it. I've always had Nagato with me. Unless… Was Other Nagato able to keep Other Me from burning out? Or was he different? Not able to? _

Nagato traced lines in the air. "So, the rock I painted that was dark, and restful - you don't think you would have made that?"

"Not unless I was trying to pretend to be you." Yahiko brushed his hair back with one hand. "I would have painted something bright and joyful, not that."

"Fascinating," Itachi murmured. "I thought the comparison was apt because of your relation to each other being similar to sun and moon deities. You think it's because of your habits and preferences being similar to the sun and moon themselves. I never considered that."

"I doubt Hidan thinks that symbolically. It's more likely that it's because Sunshine has orange hair, and Moonlight's pale," Kakuzu argued.

Nagato chuckled. "And then there's physical appearance. Wow, we… We're a perfect match. It's almost eerie."

"That explains why it didn't work," Konan whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing." She averted her eyes and stared into the fire. _We all wanted to bring the Rain Village, and the whole world, out of the dark clouds of pain and grief and into the sunlight. After Yahiko died, Nagato and I failed to do that. Is it possible that it wasn't entirely our fault? Is it possible that we were attempting the impossible, and that our efforts to bring forth sunlight when we had lost our sun wouldn't have succeeded anyway? _Tears threatened to come to her eyes, but she also felt a sense of relief. Perhaps her - their - failures weren't just because of personal shortcomings. Perhaps she - they - couldn't be blamed for everything. _No; we needed him, but he was killed. Why was he killed, again? _Never mind. Perhaps she could be.

"Except for our chakra," Yahiko said sadly. He hated to burst Nagato's bubble, but… "Sammy licked at some sunlight once and then tasted my chakra, and said I did not taste like the actual sun. But you do taste like the actual moon, so…"

"Hold on, wait," Nagato said while holding up a hand. "Same can taste sunlight and moonlight? They have chakra?"

Everyone looked at Konan. "We have no reason to think that animistic gods and goddesses such as sun and moon deities don't exist here," Itachi reminded everyone.

"So what?" Kisame argued. "All of _that_ kind of stuff we've met has nothing to do with chakra. What about chakra?"

Konan glanced around before settling on Samehada. "Chakra is present throughout the natural world," she began. "Why wouldn't sufficiently powerful natural forces have it?"

"You only talked about animals and plants when we had a discussion of chakra that time," Nagato replied. "I've been assuming that only living things can generate or use it."

"That is true."

"Are the sun and moon alive then?" Nagato glanced upward. "How would that even work?"

Konan tilted her head. "Not alive, but nonetheless they are powerful beings. I don't imagine they can generate chakra, but they can interact with it. A man I knew plotted to use the moon to enhance and distribute a technique of his over a greater range than normal. I don't know of any similar use for the sun, but the moon is definitely capable of interacting with chakra."

Everyone looked up at the moon. It _appeared_ perfectly still and inanimate to all of them. It was just a floating rock, held by the earth and lit by the sun. How could it be more powerful than the sun?

"Then again, in my world it is said that the Sage of Six Paths created the moon, so it's no surprise that it can interact with chakra if it was created from it in the first place," Konan mentioned. "The sun, of course, was there from the beginning. It's different."

"Who the what?" Nagato said. The moon, his namesake, was all that Yahiko had said it to be. But was it also as powerful as Konan said? Nagato was just as Yahiko described him, but under his quiet demeanor he apparently had enough powers that he couldn't even remember all of them yet. Oh god, it would make perfect sense. But _created? _There, they were different. Nagato and his powers hadn't been created by anyone else. They were his powers just because of who and what he was, from the beginning. Right?

"It's a Rinnegan-based power that you wouldn't want to use. Don't worry about it," she dismissed.

Itachi murmured to Kisame, "This is not what I had in mind when I said his connection to the moon might be because of his eyes."

"Can we please stop talking about the moon right now?" Nagato requested. "Just for tonight."

"Of course." Konan looked back down at the fire and shook herself. "The purpose of this meeting was to get to know all of you and your current concerns better, not for you to know irrelevant details of my past."

"You're not irrelevant," was Yahiko's immediate reply. "But yeah, I'm starting to get freaked out. I'm not afraid of night and the dark, but if I was…"

"Oh crap," Kakuzu said.

That wasn't a good thing to hear, and he wasn't a good person to hear it from.

When absolutely nobody asked him to elaborate (though Konan was working up the courage), Kakuzu elaborated on his own. "I was arguing with Hidan because I found out the vampires hate him. Vampires come out at night, and right now he's who knows where, _alone_."

Samehada whined. Kisame groaned. "Oh, _shit._" And Deidara curled one hand into a fist.

"If he's in danger -"

"We need to talk to the vampires," Yahiko said, cutting him off. His voice was steady and only gaining in surety. "The succubus hated Hidan too, Nagato and I thought of talking to her, but everything moved too quickly so we couldn't and Sasori almost _died_. We can't - we _have to_ talk to the vampires this time. There must be a reason why everyone hates Hidan. We have to find out what it is -"

"It's pretty obvious why everyone hates Hidan, but go on," Kakuzu interrupted.

"And then we can work something out or figure out a way to fix - wait, what?"

Once again, Kakuzu found himself the center of attention. He groaned inwardly, but forged ahead. "It's fairly obvious, isn't it? I'm pretty sure I've heard some of you mention how -"

Konan coughed politely.

"How...he acts without thinking of his own safety and is more competent than he looks. I'm surprised he hasn't poked his nose in something and gotten himself into trouble already. Reckless dumbass."

Konan stared at him briefly, but looked elsewhere before he could even sweat. _Whew. Close save. _

"I'm volunteering," Nagato declared. "For the team that goes to talk to the vampires. He might be a threat to whatever they want, but if so, the blood thing is probably part of it too. And if he is in danger, I don't have time to explain what the blood thing is to anyone else."

"Me too," Yahiko said. "I may not know the right way to phrase things all the time, but Hidan said I have a face that makes up for it."

Against her will, Konan found herself designing the mission in her head. "Bring Deidara and Kakuzu," she said. "You _will_ have an extraction team if you do this. That said, we have not been attacked, so we should not show force. This is as many people as I can recommend without risking escalation of hostilities."

Kakuzu facepalmed. _Is someone up there _trying _to force me to make up with him? _

Deidara got to his feet. "Stay here. I'll get back as fast as I can, yeah." And he ran off into the forest.

With that said, there was nothing left to do but wait. Nagato and Yahiko left the fire to whisper together about what they should say and how to say it. Konan wanted to give them advice on how to meet a potentially hostile force that may or may not decide to attack, but she knew it would be a bad idea. If she went to talk with them, she would not be able to stop herself from attempting to stop Yahiko from going. So she did not put herself in that situation, and instead stayed at the fire to wait with everyone else. The fire had burned low, so nobody was entirely visible anymore. Hair and cheekbones cast deep shadows over a third or more of everyone's face, and the wavering flames created the illusion of shimmering tears in everyone's eyes.

"You gotta be kidding me," Kisame complained. "I really, _really_ hope those two are damn persuasive. Who's up for another succubus fight?" As expected, the answer was nobody.

"Worse." Sasori shivered. "That was only one demon. We are not remotely ready to face down an entire group of vampires, if it comes to that. How many are there, anyway? It could be a _lot._"

Itachi exhaled slowly through his nose. "I have faith in our most diplomatic members," he said.

"I don't have faith in anything," Kisame argued. "What are we gonna do if they decide the same thing the demon did, and go after all the rest of us just because we're friends with him?"

"Ahem." Kakuzu cleared his throat loudly enough to stop what he knew would devolve into a vicious debate that would leave everyone fearful. "I don't think so." _Guess it's up to me to be the reassuring one. _"These vampires are disguising themselves as lobbyists and doing what they can to push through townwide rulings in their favor. I realized they had something against Hidan when I saw that some of their positions receive a lot of focus, have incredibly low odds of being successful, and the only possible person they can affect is Hidan. I'm talking about trying to restrict access to the forest, which is an issue that _nobody else_ cares about and that has no other support for or against. The succubus was impulsive and not very smart. These vampires are not impulsive and much smarter, which means they wouldn't immediately resort to killing." _I hope. _

Konan nodded. "Ironically enough, if I was with the original Akatsuki right now, I would be more worried about this situation. We are better at negotiation than battle; for them, the opposite was true. We have very reassuring odds of keeping this peaceful, in my view."

Sasori took a deep breath. He still shivered slightly, and his pallor had not gone away in the slightest. "So all we can do is hope. Great." He chewed the inside of his cheek. "If I could know all the details of where everyone is coming from, what we're planning, what odds we have…"

Samehada warbled sympathetically but reassuringly and crawled onto his leg, from which position he proceeded to lick Sasori's cheek. Sasori actually held him, which worried everyone else. Konan created a paper clone to retrieve the comforting blanket and one or two of the comfort animals Deidara had used.

Before the clone came back, there was a whooshing sound, and the fire briefly rose a little higher, shining off the white clay belly of the owl as it landed. Deidara leaped down, spider in hand. He immediately handed Stitchy to Sasori when he saw how frightened Sasori looked. "Let's get this over quickly, yeah! I don't want anyone to go to bed afraid tonight."

.

**A/N: The vampires are a link that leads into this whole other set of ideas I have about how things are, and the history of stuff, and oh it's going to be great! It's all gonna come up next chapter. Ideas are awesome!**

**So, which explanation does Hidan actually use when he calls them by those names? Find out whenever Hidan returns!**

**Is he in danger? Maybe...**

**Oh, and props to Deidara for his Captain America voice. I just felt like giving him a really inspirational ending line, for some reason.**

**School's coming up, school's coming up. So much! Love you guys!**


	61. Half The Battle

**A/N: Is...**

**Yeah, we're going places in this chapter. I think I actually had a dream about vampires and Hidan, sometime after I'd dreamed about the rest of this fic. But anyway, that dream spurred me to think of a whole 'nother story that can't really be called a fanfiction at all except for involving Akatsuki characters, and it was weird. As the background for THAT story, I came up with everything that has to do with vampires in this fic. So the content of this chapter comes from a completely and totally different story that I probably will never write, inspired by a different dream. Don't worry; I wrote the next chapter, where the characters of THIS fic talk about it some more, right after finishing the current chapter just to make sure that this stuff makes sense in this fic. It does! Many of my ideas are not compatible across stories, but this one apparently is.**

**Enjoy.**

**.**

**Yahiko**

The clay owl was only large enough for two people to ride on its back comfortably. Fortunately, it was a strong flyer and had large, taloned feet.

Yahiko winced as he stretched his arms on the clear patch of grass in front of what appeared to be an old car dealership. "_Ow._ I heard that stretching the arms above your head like that is how crucifixion kills, but _ow._"

Nagato was paler than usual as well, though he made no sound of pain. "Mm-hm. Hey, Dei?"

"Yeah, hm?"

"How about you just carry one of us in its feet the normal way, and the other one of us can hop in with you and Kakuzu, or ride its tail or something?"

"Yeah, hm." Deidara's blonde ponytail looked silvery in the moonlight. "I just hope we have time, hm."

"That's what I'm here for," Kakuzu grumbled. "They can't bite through rock-hard skin."

"You guys take care, yeah." Deidara was more somber than usual. Being on a mission had this way of returning him to the military mindset; the same thing had happened during the succubus fight once the action had started. It still felt good. Deidara was more convinced than ever that his getting a uniform was a good idea. He had seen nothing to contradict his idea that something in his mind had never returned to civilian life, and this mismatch was behind many of his problems.

Yahiko tried to arrange his face in the same somber way. _It's not somber, it's practical. Thinking that I might be in danger, when I really could be. I need to think this way too. _Yahiko's face firmed up, and he nodded. Deidara whispered that he would be a few houses away from them at all times, and lifted off.

To calm himself, Yahiko tried to think of what he needed to do. _I shouldn't be too somber, though. I should be friendly. The vampires haven't done anything, and they don't have a reason to hate the rest of us even if they have. If I look grim, it'll look bad. Grim doesn't really suit me anyway. _He relaxed his shoulders and smiled slightly. There. That felt appropriately serious.

He and Nagato started walking into the houses, keeping eyes and ears out for activity. "So, what's the thing you mentioned?" Yahiko whispered.

"Hidan has a kind of similar need for blood," Nagato whispered back. "Not as much, so I don't see how he could compete with them or anything, but it's a possibility."

"Really?" _Hidan's never said anything. And even though he acts different, he's never said anything about being physically different. _"That's interesting."

"I think it's eerie. I think a lot of things are." Nagato looked around. "Speaking of which…"

"See anything?"

"No, but we should stop talking."

"Yeah, sure. Right."

They continued walking, which Yahiko interpreted to mean that Nagato hadn't heard anything, either. He shivered as a wildly overgrown bush brushed his arm. _That's how it feels. I can see why she freaked out. _The moon was mostly full, but clearly on its way out, and the buildings did much to cast shadows even if none of them were terribly large. They glanced at each other. Neither knew if vampires needed lamps.

_They wouldn't, since they have sharper senses, right? Better eyes, better ears, smell. Wait. Smell. Oh, that's not good. _Yahiko realized that if vampires had sharp senses of smell, then they could probably smell fear. It was no good arranging his face to look confident if inside he was really freaking out.

He nudged Nagato's hand. Nagato looked at him questioningly. Yahiko gestured to his nose, then whispered, "So what kind of vampires do you think we have?"

Nagato touched his nose, flinched as something crackled under his foot, then understood. "Who knows?" he said, trying to make himself less scared by thinking of it as a remote issue. "The things in this town aren't quite like they are in stories. The demon boy, for instance. What kind of demon is that? I don't even know about the snake kid."

Yahiko shrugged. "Might just be regular vampires. Sounds similar so far - no smell, except blood, nocturnal."

Nagato's heart still thumped in his ribs. It wasn't working. "Maybe." He fiddled with the zipper of his cloak, making sure it was as high as it could go for the 7th time since they'd started walking.

Yahiko whispered, mostly to himself, "It doesn't matter. Because no matter what, I like Hidan. He helped me figure out why I could make people nervous, and what to do about it. He's a good guy. He's good to talk to. He's my friend." He felt his heartbeat slow, and smiled. _Success! _

Nagato couldn't get his hopes up quite that high. But that was okay, because if what Yahiko had thought of was true, then he and Yahiko were a complementary set, doing what the other couldn't. Yin and yang. It was okay to be more cautious while Yahiko was bold. No; it was his _job_ to be so. His heartbeat eased as well. Nagato readied his chakra, just in case he had to defend the both of them. Because that was also his job.

Yahiko's instincts pinged. He felt twitchy, and looked around. He felt not alone. He took Nagato's hand and squeezed.

Nagato glanced around. He briefly wished his eyes had sensory powers as they should. Where were they? He saw nothing, but he had a feeling like he was being watched too.

Yahiko thought of Konan, of his plans to talk to nature spirits. This was his chance to prove to her that he could handle himself, and prove to himself the same thing. If he was really being honest, what reason did he have to believe he would be okay, except for a basic sense that the world was a good place? Konan clearly didn't feel the same, and feelings and ideals weren't admissible as evidence. He needed a demonstration. It was time to make the universe live up to that sense.

Still holding Nagato's hand, Yahiko steered them onto an open intersection. If he was really being honest, he also had to admit his own confidence was on the line. What if his basic sense about the world was wrong? What he was about to ask for would be the _only_ validation he had received in his life so far. Nagato shared his basic optimism, so they held each other up. But what adversity had they really faced down and claimed victory over? What change had they really made? How strong were they, really? Yahiko bit his lip. _I shouldn't rely on Nagato to convince me that we really can do good things in a good world. I need to believe it myself. _Without trying to, he remembered that stream of water he had conjured. He had lifted water off the ground like it was nothing, like it was an extension of himself. He had one of the four elements on his side.

The surge of power this thought brought him was a great comfort. It would have been greater if he'd been in a very watery place, but he had managed to work with the water inside a plant before. This overgrown forest would do.

In the dead center of the intersection, Yahiko brought them to a stop. They turned to face behind them. It was a purely symbolic gesture, since the vampires could have been anywhere and they would be equally invisible, but the symbolism was needed. Nagato swallowed and struggled to remind himself of his strength. How was Yahiko looking so bold?

Yahiko was glad Nagato was there to keep an eye out with him. He needed half of his focus to keep from thinking about all of the things that would make him feel less confident if he thought about them.

Nagato looked around. His eyes were adjusting to the dark well, and he thought he saw movement. His grip on Yahiko's hand tightened. He couldn't stop thinking about all of the many very good reasons they had to be afraid right now. He would keep all of those reasons in mind so that Yahiko didn't have to.

They waited.

From their right, something crackled.

Yahiko turned to look. Nagato looked away, instinctively scanning the opposite direction in case it was a distraction. He was very conscious of his hand in Yahiko's, the two of them joined as if one. Itachi called them twins sometimes, if he thought it wouldn't get back to them. Nagato thought of telling him he didn't mind being so called, that it was accurate. The warmth of Yahiko's heartbeat beat against his.

One shape approached from their left. Meanwhile, Yahiko saw three emerge from the shadows to their right. All four stepped out to join them in the intersection, under the moonlight.

Nagato was surprised to see that they looked normal. He'd thought they would look more monstrous. He'd let his fears get the best of him.

Yahiko let go of Nagato's hand and stepped forward, moving in front of Nagato slightly. Nagato glanced around to cover their backs. Yahiko waved. "Hello! Thanks." He gestured to the right, where the sound had come from.

The woman in front sniffed. "It's only courteous to treat guests politely. You've come here for a reason. No sense in torturing you before I find out why."

Yahiko couldn't help smiling. _They sound like really reasonable people! This is gonna work out. _"Well, we just wanted to know more about something we heard of that was strange." _Should I mention we're friends with Hidan? They probably know, but I shouldn't anyway. It'd just make everything weird and hard to talk about. _

With that in mind, he tried to figure out how he could approach the topic of Hidan without making everything personal. "Um, a friend of ours was looking into town laws for personal reasons, and he found that there was lobbying to close off the forest, for some reason. We think that's the same group as you guys, so, why?" _Why didn't Kakuzu tell us more about what he was doing and what he found?! _

One of the men standing behind her with his hands in his pockets snorted and grinned. He was better described as a boy. He said nothing, so Yahiko didn't know why he'd grinned. Maybe he was impressed that they'd found out so much? Only now did Yahiko get a good look at them, since he hadn't really been paying attention to these three before. If they were backup, they weren't the hired muscle kind. A girl of apparently similar age to the boy twisted her hands together and snuck glances at the woman they stood behind as if she wasn't sure why she'd been granted the honor of being here, and the third, a man who looked like he was in his 40s, glanced over the whole scene as if he was an adult supervising a children's field trip. He looked mostly bored, but a little interested in the two humans.

The woman in front smiled. "You are different from most of the people we've seen, aren't you?"

Yahiko nodded. "We have...reasons to be. Yes."

She nodded her head politely. "If that's so, we might be able to see eye-to-eye for once. We could help each other. What do you say?"

Yahiko's heart soared. _Helping each other?! It's perfect! _His face lit up immediately, but before he could say anything, Nagato jabbed him in the ribs. The redhead stepped out from behind Yahiko and drew in front of him, reversing their positions. "Excuse me," he said, "we're going to need to know what, _exactly, _you want to 'help each other' with."

The leader looked him up and down, like she had previously appraised Yahiko. "Aren't you two a dynamic duo? Very nice. Well, alright. Buckle in.

"We're trying to make it so that humans have limited access to the forest in order to protect ourselves," she began. "And protect humans, too. We only want to keep everyone safe.

"Unfortunately, some humans threaten this. They call themselves 'vampiric,' but trust me, they are nothing like us. They are human in all but a strange need to drink blood. They benefit from it, too. That's why they're so dangerous."

She stepped forward. Nagato and Yahiko held their ground. Looking from one to the other, she told them, "We've known about their kind for a long time. They compete with us for very limited food; how could we not? Once, vampires accepted their presence, kept them around and treated them as being nearly like us. That was a mistake.

"Over and over again, the same thing happened, always. They started out perfectly kind, decent, human. Then, inevitably, they stumbled onto some source of power that they could get more of only if they consumed more blood." Her face darkened. "So they began to see vampires as competition, and humans as food. Tell me…"

She looked from one to the other. They were both starting to get worried. _Where is she going with this? _"Tell me," she repeated, "that white-haired friend of yours, or anyone else like him. Have you ever seen a glint in their eyes? A predatory instinct, to harm, to kill? A fleeting desire that could all too easily turn on you? Raising a weapon or looking at your neck just a little too long, appraising you like a lamb to the slaughter…"

Yahiko's entire back stiffened, and he felt cold all over. _Lamb to the slaughter. _Paper claws. A dismembered deer. Nagato's eyes narrowed, and his hands tightened into fists.

The woman smiled. "I see you have. So have we. The fact is, so-called 'vampiric' humans are a danger to both humans and vampires. We have opened an entirely new world for ourselves, a world of scent and sights otherwise undetectable, a nighttime world that humans do not share and therefore do not compete with us for, and we earned it by becoming restricted to one of the most difficult and restrictive diets imaginable. It's not even as filling as you'd expect." She chuckled.

"This broken breed of humans seeks to take over both worlds, and they earn none of it. They take blood not to keep themselves alive, but to keep themselves powerful. A small group can consume far more blood more quickly than a medium to large society of vampires, and they will search for more. They take humans as food, and starve honest people who only wanted to fly freely at night to death."

She held up a hand. "Of course, I know yours haven't proceeded to that point yet. The white-haired one takes only small mammals once or twice a week, and if you know any others that we haven't seen yet, you clearly aren't afraid of them. But the white-haired one and any others will turn on you, _very _soon. We know about that symbol."

Nagato swallowed. He didn't want to, not in front of them, but he couldn't help it. "What symbol?"

She looked at him as if she was _so disappointed. _"Don't lie to me. We can feel it, just like you can. Even more so, actually, considering that the god to whom that symbol belongs was stolen from _us_ in the first place."

Nagato and Yahiko's mouths dropped open. _Jashin sama is a vampire god? _Nagato remembered the incredible amount of blood required to draw the symbol. Yahiko remembered how it itched, as if it didn't fit right. Was this true?

"Time for a history lesson." She spread her hands wide. "Once, a long time ago, vampires worshipped that one. We worshipped almost as if he was a very great, very powerful vampire himself. Gave blood to feed him, all of that. In return, our powers grew even greater, making our natural regeneration even stronger and allowing us to survive just about anything.

"Then those off-breeds decided to join in. They needed less blood for their own survival, so they gave far more than we could. They got even more powers than the regular worshippers did! We physically could not give so much and survive! No god should discriminate so unfairly. They became a large and obnoxious base, pretending to be _better_ simply because they needed less.

"Then a prophet came. I'll spare you the details of his story - suffice to say, he had a line. He was how we learned of that god's name, or our closest approximation of it, and he also demonstrated that _someone _had a clear preference now for human off-breeds, and not the beings that he'd originally been housed by. He also was a very, very public figure. Knowledge spread even into the human world, where previously undiscovered off-breeds heard just enough to join in. Everything was changed.

"We'd had some go power-hungry before. They gain about the same powers we have from adopting a diet just like ours, so it was no more trouble than any dictator. But their new patron deity had no stomach to grow full, and only gave more power in relation to blood sacrificed, so they went wild. Responsible vampires were forced to institute a culling program."

Nagato made some inarticulate sounds. "Culling? You mean...genocide?"

The leader gave him another disappointed look. "They're more like animals than they are like civilized people of either species, darling." She shook her head. "The social upheaval could only turn in their favor, or ours. It was war; what do you expect?

"It was all we could have done. Now, there are none allowed into the vampire world. Since they're human, they continue to pop up in the human world, and they continue to worship somehow even though we're _sure_ knowledge of that god was suppressed and destroyed. Probably he encourages it. It's a bother."

She held out a hand. "We did nothing about the white-haired one, because he is the only one and he was just a boy. If there are more, or he's growing violent, and especially if he's bringing that god into this, then we can't be held back by conscience anymore. I'm not asking you to kill your friend - he just needs to be stopped if he is violent, separated from that god, and the symbol needs to be destroyed. Will you help us protect everyone?"

Nagato felt weak. Yahiko stumbled forward so they were side by side, and they leaned on each other. They glanced at her hand, at the other three vampires, at the sky - everything except her face.

Yahiko shook his head weakly. "Hidan's not dangerous." _He really likes other people, and wants to help. He could never hurt anyone. _"He - he can literally feel exactly what someone else feels. He can't hurt anyone."

The woman focused her green eyes on him. "Are there any others?"

Yahiko hesitated. He wasn't any good at lying. It was better when people were straightforward and truthful with each other; Yahiko believed that not knowing the truth was the cause of unpeaceful things. "Um...not exactly… Kind of? Almost?" _Konan doesn't need to drink blood. Does she? Aside from that she's a lot like Hidan. I had no idea he needed to drink blood. _

"Did whoever you're talking about follow him, specifically?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Drawn to the symbol?"

"...Yes."

She sighed. "That's harm enough."

Yahiko shook his head, more strongly this time. "He isn't dangerous. That's not true. It's not right either." _The symbol itches, but it doesn't really feel _wrong_. If it was wrong, I'd know. Hidan's not wrong either. The idea of getting rid of them, though… That does feel wrong. But how can I say that it is, with no proof? _

Nagato was grateful for this little discussion. It had given him exactly the time he needed to get his brain back in gear. "No."

Yahiko and the vampires looked at him. Nagato straightened and met the leader's gaze directly. "We will not accept your offer. Not yet. Not until we have information of our own." He glanced sideways at Yahiko. "There's no way I'll agree to anything drastic, without knowing anything of what's going on, based solely on a version of history that's definitely been edited by the winners. Even I can pick out some parts of that story that don't make sense."

Yahiko looked at Nagato with adoration. _Yes! That makes sense. It's the only thing that does. How does he make sense of things so quickly? _It was clear what they needed to do. If Yahiko continued to say that nothing about her proposal _felt _right to him, he would be argued down. Nagato couldn't back him up yet, because he didn't know enough to build a counterargument. They had to retreat and gather support for their position.

The leader dropped her hand. "Don't make sense?" She sounded angry, for the first time in the whole discussion. "It all makes perfect sense. Broken humans find power in a corrupt god and use it. Both need to be kept as far away from civilized, _decent _people as they can be." She caught her tone beginning to rise just as the middle-aged man looked at her sharply. "But, it is good that you have reason. Once you see, you might just make decent allies." She nodded politely at them. "I look forward to seeing you two again. This has been...interesting."

Yahiko blinked rapidly. "Wait!"

She halted in her turn and stared at him. He asked, "Do you have any idea where Hidan is right now? He was upset earlier and I want to talk to him. He said he's slept here before…"

"No idea," she replied. "I'm sure someone's keeping track, but I haven't received a report. Go back home." Without another word or gesture, she turned, gathered her three attendants with a glance, and they all disappeared into the shadows.

Nagato let out a shuddering breath several seconds after they disappeared from sight. He reached for Yahiko's hand. "Oh god," he whispered. "I don't doubt that what we heard was heavily edited, but… Could Hidan or Konan really -"

"No," Yahiko answered. "I can't say why, but I don't think so. They're not like that. She said things are wrong and bad, but nothing feels wrong or bad. It isn't true."

Nagato shivered. "I can't tell who's telling the truth. Everything sounds plausible…"

Yahiko squeezed his hand hard enough to cause some small amount of pain. "She's not telling the truth. We need to talk to Hidan, find out more like you said."

Nagato leaned onto his shoulder and sighed. "I'm glad you're so confident."

"And I'm glad you can make sense of things." Yahiko looked up at the sound of wingbeats.

Deidara and Kakuzu landed where the four vampires had previously stood in the middle of the intersection. Deidara visibly restrained himself from leaping off his owl and running to Nagato. Instead he asked, "What happened, yeah? Is anyone hurt? What'd she say?"

Yahiko pushed Nagato upright, and they walked over to the bird. Nagato shook his head. "No, it's… It's complicated. We need to find out more, make sense of it."

"Is Hidan hurt?" Kakuzu asked.

Yahiko shook his head no. "She said she has no idea where he is, only that someone's probably tracking him. Apparently they do that."

Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "_Wonderful. _It sounds like everything's grown vastly more complicated, and all for no reason." He tilted his head towards the owl's tail feathers. "Those can curl up. Get in."

Yahiko and Nagato stayed silent for the entire trip back. They would only respond to Kakuzu's annoyed and Deidara's worried inquiries with, "We need to talk to Hidan." This pissed off Kakuzu even more and worried Deidara even closer to a panic attack, so they stopped asking.

The fire was entirely out when they returned to the backyard, but Itachi had elected to stay behind and keep a watch on the back porch. Something else fluttered away into the darkness as the four of them got off the owl. Deidara jumped at the sound and asked, "Itachi, what was that?"

"A crow, I think," Itachi replied. "These steps were used by birds before. Perhaps some are getting used to human activity and coming back." He stood. "Is Hidan okay?"

Yahiko nodded yes, then remembered that Itachi probably couldn't see him well in the dark. "Yeah. The vampires keep track of him, but they're not eager to hurt him. The four we met just looked like really normal people, actually."

"I take it he hasn't come back yet?" Nagato asked. "Darn. We need to talk to him. Urgently."

Itachi looked at them with the Sharingan. What he saw frightened him, though he didn't show it on his face. Nagato appeared to be genuinely scared and unsure, his normal calm fractured to pieces. Yahiko was doing better emotionally, but he had a very serious look on his face. Either he'd matured into a full-fledged ninja in a miraculously short time span, or something of great importance was weighing him down. Nagato's look showed that it could not be a good kind of important. What could be both that large and that bad?

"I'll inform Konan," he told them. His voice quavered. "She can use some technique to search for him, now that we know he's not in danger."

Yahiko nodded. "That'd be good. Thank you."

Itachi went inside, and broke into a run.

.

**A/N: Is anyone gonna believe this is nearly, if not THE shortest chapter of this story? _I_ don't believe it, and I already knew what happens! That is a good sign to me.**

**I'll be working some on the next chapter, trying to make it as clear as possible and bring it to at least the level of this one. Some answers shall be provided, some questions raised, some things revealed. Definitely not all of it, or this wouldn't be a continuing little subplot, but hopefully enough to be satisfying. **

**Is Hidan in danger? Like I said last time... Maybe. **


	62. To Know Thy Enemy And Thyself

**A/N: This is the first time I've ever considered doing paired chapters. I think it's working out nicely. The complete sentence, if you put together this title and the last, is a Sun Tzu quote that I remembered vaguely. I wrote 'Half The Battle' first,' but I just now realized it could actually be read either way.**

**Not much else to say here. I'm feeling unusually quiet. It must be from how I was just thinking of Obito.**

**Have fun.**

**.**

**Nagato**

Neither Yahiko nor Nagato felt like going inside. Inside was some semblance of stability, normality. At this time of night, a cue to go to sleep. That would just be _wrong_. There was no way they would sleep or allow themselves to believe anything was normal, not until they had answers.

Deidara and Kakuzu stared at the two of them, wondering if they should try asking again, but they'd heard how scared Itachi sounded after just _looking_ at Nagato and Yahiko with his Sharingan. Kakuzu had had enough. He stormed inside. Normality and sleep was exactly what he wanted after a day like today.

Deidara stayed with his owl, shifting from foot to foot and shivering as the muscles all over his chest tightened. He, too, felt like he could not tolerate normality or sleep. Trying to get to sleep in the middle of a warzone was ludicrous. Besides, he was in this with them now, right? Their cloaks all matched. He was part of the team now, looking for one of his own.

"You guys want Clay to stay?" he asked. "If he's far away, we could fly there faster than running, yeah."

Yahiko smiled. "_Thank you_." Those words were very deep and heartfelt, even to Deidara's relatively inexperienced ears. He really was one of them, with them.

Nagato tried to draw comfort from this pleasant interaction, but couldn't. Tears threatened and he felt a touch of nausea. _What if Hidan is in danger? Maybe not from the vampires, but from what she said. From himself, or Jashin sama, or… _He shivered with anxiety. _Yahiko's right. None of what they said about him could make any sense. But even if he isn't bad, he could still be in a _lot_ of trouble. _

He couldn't believe he'd never thought of this before. Hidan always seemed in control, aware of what was going on and able to work with everything that happened to him. But was he really? Just because he could use a maelstrom to fly didn't mean he wasn't still caught in it. Nagato thought back over his interactions with Hidan. Hidan couldn't remember things. He didn't know about himself, about where he'd come from or what he was. Something had to have taken that from him. Nagato chastised himself for being an idiot. _Of course something had to have taken his memories. Memories don't just disappear for no reason! _And then, there was the stranger that had taken over his body. Who was that? Surely, normal sleepwalking could not cause a person's eyes to change color. And the way he'd moved! Nagato remembered how mechanical it had seemed. Yes, Hidan was definitely in _very big trouble_, and Nagato didn't know if he could rescue him, but he had to try.

Yahiko grabbed his elbow, stabilizing him. "Nagato? What's wrong?"

"I think we lied to Itachi," Nagato chattered through his teeth. "Think about it. He can't remember. He can't know things. And he sleepwalks, but not normal sleepwalking, more like someone was steering him around. The vampires aren't after him, but I think Hidan is in danger, and he always has been. How could I not have seen it?"

Yahiko pulled him over to lean against the bird, which was now crouching to accommodate. "It will be okay."

"How do you kn -"

They were interrupted by the back door flying open, releasing Konan in front of a swarm of paper butterflies. They poured out the door around her, as if they were pushing her along like a white river. The air filled with the quiet, whispering sounds of paper flapping as the butterflies spread into the forest. Nagato stopped, remembering the last time he had heard this sound. He hadn't known Hidan for longer than an hour back then, but Hidan had slung an arm around his shoulder like they were old friends. The tears came, and he couldn't stop them. _Please let Hidan be safe. Please. _That arm around his shoulder would feel really good right about now.

Konan's face was severe and near-murderous. Her eyes looked like something was going to be on fire soon. "Itachi told me there was trouble," she said.

Nagato stood up and wiped the tears from his cheeks. More came. He gave up, and nodded. "There is. A lot."

Konan came to stand near him, offering silent reassurance. It did not have to be said that she was coming with them, because they all knew it. Nagato sobbed. "I really, _really_ hope none of what she said was true," he whispered. _Hidan's in enough trouble without any of it being true. It would make everything worse if it was. Oh god. _

Deidara and Yahiko looked on. Deidara leaned over and whispered, "What who said?"

Yahiko hated feeling useless. He'd never seen Nagato this upset, and he couldn't do anything. It was horrible. "The leader of the vampires. She said that she thought Hidan was evil, or at least connected to and influenced by evil things, and she thinks she's protecting herself from him."

Deidara said nothing. They continued to stay silent while Nagato got his fear under control and Konan's butterflies searched. Deidara was just about to say something to break the gloomy mood when Konan shifted. She stood alert and looked around. "I've found him."

Yahiko gasped and raced to the owl, leaping onto Clay's back. Deidara did the same. "Let's go then!" Yahiko called. "Yeah! Um. Konan?"

Nagato had been about to hop up, but he stared into Konan's face instead. She stared back at him. "It would be best if Nagato and I approached him first. Gently," she advised.

Nagato's heart sank. There was only one thing about Hidan they shared that came to mind. Nagato gestured to his eyes, just to make sure. She nodded. "Yeah. We should definitely approach him first."

He jumped onto the owl's tail, which curled around him. He hadn't seen Hidan unlike himself since that morning when he'd caught Hidan sleepwalking. In a way, it would be good to see him that way again. Konan had not explained what he had seen. Perhaps she hadn't known. _That leaves only one person I can ask. I need to know what was happening! I can't leave Hidan to go through that. _

Nagato tried to remember what he had seen. _He moved so mechanically. His scythe almost cut some things in a few places, but it was like he didn't even notice. Oh no... He didn't notice. He didn't even hear me until his eyes turned pink again. I won't be able to talk to him. _Nagato buried his head in his arms and groaned. He was going to have to ask anyway, because he needed answers. This was just going to make it so much harder to get any.

Yahiko offered Nagato his hand, but Nagato shook his head. "I have to see for myself if he's okay." Konan sprouted paper wings and flew in front of the owl, guiding them to a spot northwest of the lake, near the river but past it. She touched down barely past the river, in a clearing close enough that they could hear the water's calm, quiet burbling. Everybody dismounted, and she and Nagato set off.

The ground quickly rose into a small hill. "Up here," Konan murmured.

Nagato did not respond, because he felt ill. The nausea was worse. He could feel his legs subtly tremble beneath him. His heart felt like it was pumping something other than blood. His breathing sounded harsh to his own ears. Nagato felt sick mentally, too. _What am I even going to say? _He tried to put words together to form an answer, but the words slipped away.

Nagato swallowed. _I'm scared. _He had never considered seeing that terrifying not-Hidan ever again after that morning, and now here he was planning to _interact_ with it - him - whatever. Nagato remembered how, after seeing him, he'd gone back to his room and huddled, shaking, in terror until Yahiko came. That wasn't an option now. If he had something he was afraid of, he would have to deal with it. For Hidan, but also for himself.

Nagato forced himself ahead (though his legs suddenly became partially paralyzed the moment he asked them to move him closer to the hilltop), and pulled at Konan's sleeve. "I need to go first," he pleaded. His voice squeaked on the last word. Definitely pleading.

Konan's breath was nearly as fast as his, but she seemed to have trouble _stopping_ herself from moving forward. She held herself still for two whole torturous seconds before nodding. She hoped whatever he wanted to do was quick.

Nagato nodded back and let go. Step by step, he forced himself forward. His legs threatened to mutiny every time he lifted a foot. His thoughts scattered. Yet, enough remained for Nagato to know that he had felt like this before. "I can ride Cthulhu like a pony," he whispered. "Of course I can. Hidan would say I could."

Speak of the devil. Just as he thought that, a human silhouette materialized from nowhere. There was a large open area beyond the hill, where light shone freely. Hidan's performance of sitting and looking out over the sight was excellent, marred only by how _still_ he was sitting. Nagato shivered.

He held his right arm with his left as he walked up. Silently, he took a deep breath and sat down, not looking directly at Hidan. After a few seconds of sitting stock-still in terror this way, Nagato pinched himself harshly. He looked at Hidan.

And he almost as quickly looked away again. _Right. That's what his eyes looked like. S-scary. _In the faint moonlight, Hidan's eye color was more visible than before, but Nagato realized he could probably have seen it in complete darkness. That color was so much more than a color. Looking at it gave Nagato the feeling of something opening up beneath him, something which would sweep him up and run off with him in all different directions, motion so wild it would tear him apart into his constituent atoms. He clutched at his arm, reassuring himself that it had not happened, that he was still intact.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "Where is Hidan?"

There was no answer. Nagato checked from the corner of his eye, and saw no movement anywhere. It was like talking to a statue, or a coma patient.

"Hello?"

Silence.

Nagato looked up at his face. "Say something."

Silence.

"Anything."

Not a flicker of recognition.

Nagato took a deep breath and sat up. "Is there...anyone there?"

The wind rustled in the leaves overhead. Something made little movements in the bushes. Insects sang, not as many as there would be when full summer arrived, but a few. And that was all that happened. Despite the fact that he could _feel_ that color on his skin, Nagato felt very alone. _I'm the only person up here on this hilltop. _

_No! _He shook his head, making his hair fly around his face. _I am not. _Nagato brushed his hair out of his face and into its usual arrangement, leaving his left eye visible. His heart hammered in his chest, but he scooted closer to Hidan, until there was only one foot between them. He struggled to swallow.

"I… I don't know who you are, or if you can hear me, or if Hidan can." Nagato curled his hands into fists for courage. "But I need to let you know. I care about Hidan. He matters to me. He's fascinating, and brave, and I have so much to learn from him, and... I want to be brave like he is. I want to handle whatever happens, like he does."

Nagato wiped his eyes, grateful for the excuse to shield himself from that color, even for a moment. "But I know something else. I know that he can't handle everything. I know that he's not always as happy as he seems. I know that there are some things only I can do that he can't, and I'm going to do one of them now."

Every part of Nagato's body started to shake separately, as if they all sensed what he was about to do. He told himself _Quiet! _and lunged. With one movement of his legs, he forced himself up, where he lost his balance and toppled forward. Nagato gasped as he landed on Hidan's shoulder, but he held on. He was now hugging Hidan's limp body. It was not the body of a statue; it was _definitely_ the body of a coma patient. Nagato understood why he was propped up against a tree. _It's nice that he was that considerate. Maybe, if he cares about this body at least, I can get through to him._

"Please." Nagato held on for dear life and whispered into Hidan's ear. "Please don't hurt him. Please keep him safe, and happy, and -" He started crying. "_Please_. I don't know what you're doing here but don't - don't take away - just - this is a good thing, a _great _thing, and please don't hurt it for him."

Nagato's greatest fear appeared in his head, unasked for. He saw Yahiko, lying dead and lifeless, on the ground. Nagato understood what that would be like. It felt like he was holding Hidan's dead body now. _No! He's not gone. He came back! He's not dead! _The cloak under Nagato's face was too wet to absorb any more. Tears started to pool and slide down the back.

Nagato felt a hand on his shoulder. "Nagato…" It was Konan. Gently, she worked her fingers in between his shoulder and Hidan's, prying him loose. Nagato closed his eyes and let himself be pried. Once separated and moved a few feet away, he found it so much easier to catch his breath and stop shaking. _I heard different tears really do look different under a microscope. What do fear tears look like? Why am I wondering about this? Oh god. _He took several deep breaths.

After those deep breaths, he opened his eyes again. It was an incredible relief to see that Konan had closed Hidan's eyes. She waved for him to come over. Having recovered some of his nerve, he did.

"What did you and Yahiko wish to talk to him about?" she asked.

Nagato blinked at her for a while before realizing what she was asking. "Uh - um… Yahiko. He - I'll get him." Nagato tried to stand, but it didn't work too well.

Konan reached up and forced him down. "No you will not. I will." She sent out some paper. Nagato grabbed her hand before it could leave his shoulder and held it. _I need calm. Focus. I already begged, I'm done with that now. Meditate. Listen to the wind. _He listened to the wind. By the time Yahiko came running, Nagato was ready to let go of Konan's hand.

Deidara had come, too. "How is he, hm?" he asked in a rush.

Konan grimaced as she pushed her hand into Yahiko's chest to stop him from looking too closely at Hidan. "Fine. He is fine. Go away."

Yahiko went over to Nagato instead. "Okay. Um. Is he ready to say anything? He looks like he's sleeping."

_Or dead. _Nagato stifled a sob.

Konan pressed a hand against Hidan's cheek. When no feeling of pain or motion struck her, she announced, "He is."

Nagato nudged Yahiko in the ribs and nodded. _You ask. _Yahiko nodded back and prepared some questions.

He waited for Hidan to open his eyes before asking them, though. When that didn't happen he turned to Konan. "Uh, it's a little hard to, when his eyes are… Is he really okay?"

Hidan took a deeper breath and sat up a little. He opened his eyes. They were purple. "Mm." His face was still too still to be comfortable, but it would do. Nagato was just glad he was able to look at Hidan's eyes without feeling pain.

Yahiko smiled and said, "Okay!" He rubbed his hands together. "We heard… a _lot_ of stuff from the vampire lady in charge. I barely know where to start.

"Nagato told me about you needing to drink blood. She said that there are more people who need to do that - off-breeds, she called them - and that people who need to do that tend to be really dangerous. She said that 'your kind,' her words not mine, aren't really like either humans or vampires. That you see human people as different from you, as food, and you don't really care and could turn on us at any time." Yahiko's eyes flicked sideways. "I'm sorry, but she - I should say all of it." He tried to look only at Hidan, but failed a few times. "She asked if we'd seen any hungry looks, or violent instincts, or anything that looked like you thought of us as, 'like a lamb to the slaughter.'" He cringed violently.

"Do you...really care?" Yahiko did not know who he was asking. He looked at the ground to avoid meeting anyone's eyes.

Konan's face closed off. She remembered. She had come very close to killing him. She hadn't, but she could have, and all it would have taken was one more slip, one more second without full control of her battle instincts. One very small slip, and he could have been that deer. Slaughtered. Konan had done her best to avoid thinking about it, but she couldn't make the terror of knowing that about herself stop existing. For all the forgiveness that Yahiko could muster, now she knew: neither could he.

She also lowered her eyes to the ground, in shame. He was right to feel afraid. Afraid was exactly what he _should_ feel, what he did not feel enough of on his own. Paradoxically, she thought she might be helping him. But she was also scaring and threatening him, which did not feel right at all. Which was true?

Regardless of what the truth was, she felt horrible. Only an apology could help. "I do care," Konan whispered. "I can't answer the rest of the charges, but that one is not true. I may hurt you - worse than I already have - and this may not work out, but at least I will not have made a conscious, willing choice to betray you."

"Eating is impossible," Hidan muttered. His voice was so flat and monotone that Nagato had to fight to stop himself from crying out in fear. "Because of the pain. Cannot eat while aware of the pain."

Deidara and Yahiko stared at him, both going pale. In this lighting, they hadn't noticed his eyes very much, but this voice was impossible to miss. Nagato elbowed Yahiko hard in the ribs and shook his head. _No. No. Very much no. Do not go there. _He mimed zipping his lips shut. Yahiko realized why his best friend had been acting so scared since they'd returned.

Yahiko conveyed this advice to Deidara before following it. "Oh. Y-yeah, that's… One of us said exactly that. That you couldn't be dangerous because hurting others was hurting yourself. She said that didn't matter because bringing Jashin sama over was harm enough."

He shook his head. "Speaking of, um, she gave us this whole history lesson on vampire history, and it sounded really bad. Basically, she said that Jashin sama used to be a vampire god, but then 'off-breeds' started to worship him and they could sacrifice way more blood than a real vampire could, so a prophet said that he preferred off-breeds over vampires now, and there was chaos, and then a lot of people started using the power they got from worshipping to try to take over the vampires, and the whole thing ended in, like, genocide? And now the only non-vampires who exist are in the human world and no vampire wants to be near them." He glanced at Nagato.

Nagato swallowed. "She thinks Jashin sama is a corrupt god, that he shows favoritism and encourages bloodshed by giving more power the more blood you spill. She asked us to destroy the symbol."

"Oh, gods, yeah." Yahiko had almost managed to forget what she had asked them to do. "Destroy the symbol, stop Hidan, and break his connection to Jashin sama. They're not willing to _murder_ anyone, especially not a boy - but they want to do a lot of other things."

Konan choked. "De -" She coughed again. "Destroy his connection to Jashin sama?" Her chest spasmed some more. It increasingly sounded like laughter. "That - that is not possible." She placed the back of her hand over her mouth to stop it.

Hidan's brow slowly wrinkled in confusion. Nagato found it eerie, but fascinating. It was like watching a slo-mo video of someone becoming confused. "That's wrong." His voice had a touch more emotion in it than before. "Right, but wrong."

Konan glanced at him with her fist over her mouth. Deidara wondered what the _hell_ was going on, but resolved to think about it later. Nagato hoped the increase in emotion meant the hairs on his spine could relax sometime soon. Yahiko was confused. "Which parts are right? Which parts are wrong?"

"All of it." Hidan's brow stayed wrinkled. His eyes were a lighter shade of purple. "Who belongs belongs. Who doesn't doesn't. To be alive, hunting, motion, pain… It's a type, not species. No preference."

Konan lowered her fist and picked up where he left off. "Jashin sama demands blood be sacrificed as a symbol of vitality. It requires a specific type of personality to worship him. Different, more relaxed personalities simply wouldn't be able to. I can't imagine Original Hidan performing those sacrifices joylessly. It's part of it all."

Nagato folded his hands in front of his face. "So those things happened, but she misinterpreted them. There was no switch from preferring vampire worshippers to preferring vampiric ones. The real cause was different."

"If there was a change, but it's all a matter of personality, then vampires have different personalities than non-vampires," Yahiko concluded. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense. How can non-vampires be different, all of them? He just said personalities aren't species-specific."

Nagato tapped him on the arm. "Yeah, but we're talking about vampiric humans. A _very small subset_ of all humans. Large groups of people are always more diverse than smaller ones. And that's just statistical chance, not even taking into account biases, like if being vampiric _causes_ people to have a certain personality, which it actually makes a lot of sense that it would... If you have to hunt to live, you'd enjoy it, right?" He traced lines in the air from conclusion to conclusion. "But no - that doesn't work, because vampires also have to hunt. So if that's how it works, vampires should all be alike as well… Ex_cept_ that stories of vampires say they used to be normal humans before they were _made _into vampires, whereas, just needing a dietary supplement of blood would be a condition you have since birth. So, actually, vampires should be just as diverse as the normal human population, because a transformation isn't subject to evolutionary pressure. But if it's a lifelong biologically-based thing, it _would_ be, so personality traits that enhance survival should be selected for." Nagato's eyes were completely glazed over. He was no longer aware of the outside world, only of his thinking, which he saw before him as an elegant spider web of information tied together to form a larger structure. "Therefore, vampiric humans should have a way higher proportion of suitable personalities than regular vampires, so higher proportions of them become worshippers. Any given vampiric human is more likely to be a worshipper than any given vampire. Knowing that could lead someone to treat vampires and vampirics in different ways, which might make it _look_ as though Jashin sama would rather have vampirics than vampires as worshippers."

He blinked and returned to the real world, looking around to see how impressed everyone was with his conclusion. Konan had a small smile on her face, but they didn't appear to fully understand. "Um, I mean… Evolution makes vampiric humans have personalities more like what Konan described, but it doesn't do the same for vampires."

Deidara nodded in understanding. "Oh, so, it's like redheads and freckles." He explained to Konan, "Around here, people who have red hair usually have freckles, because those two things are tied together by genes so it's really hard to have one without the other. Being a blood-drinking person and having a Jashinist personality is like that, hm?"

Nagato facepalmed. "_No_, it is not! That's completely different… Oh, whatever. It'd take too long to explain. Yeah, they're tied together like that. Kind of. Wrong reasoning, though."

Konan shrugged. "The whole isn't found without _all_ of its parts, yet they persist in blaming only one part without thinking of the others."

Nagato groaned. "That's more accurate." _She didn't even sit through high school biology! I guess a little knowledge really is more dangerous than none at all, sometimes. _

Yahiko shrugged. "I don't really care about why, but I do care that they all have different personalities from vampires. That's the important part. So the vampire lady was wrong; vampiric people really _do_ make better worshippers than vampires, and that's not anyone's fault. Jashin sama's not biased, he just has standards, and nobody can make themselves meet the standards or not. There's no reason for her to blame that on 'those dastardly off-breeds' or a 'corrupt god' at all!" He sighed in relief. That was nice and simple. A conflict caused by people not knowing things, so if they learned the full story, it would improve. He'd been afraid, ever since learning that this conflict was rooted deep in vampire history, that he had accidentally gotten himself into one of those unsolvable conflicts that nobody would appreciate his efforts to fix. Yahiko took a deep breath and sent up a mental thank-you to anyone who might be listening.

"Uh, guys… I know this sounds really bad, but you just said she's _right_ to think that off-breeds or vampirics or whatever are dangerous, just because of what they are." Deidara finally got comfortable and made himself part of their 5-man circle. "Sounds kinda...racist, and you mentioned there was a genocide, yeah? Are we sure we want to be supporting that?"

Konan glared at him. "There is a great deal of difference between snatching rabbits and enjoying it, and murder. Tigers are dangerous, and yet they do not need to be killed because their dangerous instincts are controlled. There are actions one can take to protect themself. If the danger tigers pose was uncontrolled and nobody could find a reliable way to keep themselves safe, then they would need to be killed. Killing is a last resort for if there are no rules to follow to keep yourself safe, or if the rules are impossible to follow."

Nagato glanced at Hidan, who seemed to be letting everyone else do all the work of figuring things out for themselves. _Huh. He didn't move at all earlier, and that was scary. But as much as I wished he would, he didn't really have to move. If he really has to or else they'll die, would he protect Hidan? _He blinked those thoughts away for the time being. Even so, it was comforting to know that perhaps there was a reason behind everything.

Meanwhile Yahiko held up a hand. "Well, hey, wait. That might work for tigers, but people are different. People are so complicated you can barely _find_ the rules before they change. She said some of them took their powers and tried to fight a war, and that sounds true. I can see why she'd get confused, when it's hard to tell who's being violent because of their personality and who's being violent for some other reason. How do you find out what's really happening?"

Deidara asked, "How does Hidan know what's really happening, hm?"

They both stopped talking and looked at Hidan. How _did_ he sort through a whole religion to find the underlying structure that made sense of it all? Wait a second. Hadn't he said at the party that his original's religion was too disorganized to be a religion? How could he know enough people who worshipped Jashin sama to do it?

And what about Konan? They looked at her next. She'd known what he was saying well enough to elaborate. Konan raised her hands. "Those pages that told me how to install the symbol explained the reasoning behind some of the steps." She motioned to Deidara, who should know what she was talking about. "I read that I could use sap for the least important parts, for example, and it was written next to it that this was because I just needed a carrier of life force. I was told directly that Jashinism has to do with vitality."

The other three looked back at Hidan. Who had told him all about his original's religion? _Wait, _Nagato realized, _how did he know it wasn't a religion? Even if Konan told him all about Jashinism, how would she know what the overall structure was like? How did I not realize that this doesn't make sense before now?_

Konan tensed her muscles, wondering if she would need to defend him again. Kakuzu was the first to believe that Hidan was different and that he did not really care. Now all of Hidan's closest friends, excepting herself, thought that he was different and looked at him strangely too. She glanced at Hidan, waiting for a signal like the one she had received during the phone call. Would he need her help again?

Hidan's eyes slowly closed, and he leaned back, slackening. He did not need help this time. There was no immediate threat.

Konan exhaled slowly. "He must be very tired. We should return."

Yahiko sighed. "He won't answer the question later. He won't even remember, will he?"

"He's not answering it now," Nagato consoled. "That's the answer. We're done with asking him things." He stood up for the first time in well over half an hour. _Woah. My legs are wobbly. Did they fall asleep? _Regardless, when he saw Konan reaching for Hidan's arm, he joined her. Together, they lifted Hidan and began to carry him back to the bird. _I hope he knows I care. I do. I can get past whatever this was, hug him, even. I hope he knows I'm not going to be scared away by a little thing like this. _

Nagato looked up from his thoughts to see Konan. She looked him directly in the eyes, and smiled. Looking in her eyes, he could see that it was a very heartfelt smile, and blushed. "What?" he asked. "I'm not a coward." He smiled anyway.

Konan snorted. "It would not be cowardice to stay far from him," she whispered. "An average person would. You are very brave to stay."

Rather than make him feel good, this news hit Nagato's stomach like a bag of rocks. "I hope not," he replied. "One of the things I begged for was to not hurt Hidan, to keep him alive, _and happy_. If I have to be brave to stay, does that mean that other people might not?"

Konan nodded. "That is his worst fear. It was part of his argument with Kakuzu earlier. Kakuzu is newly committed to resolving his personal problems in order to not abandon Hidan. You also know and haven't left. You are the only two so far."

Nagato shifted Hidan's arm so that he supported more of his weight directly. "I won't, Hidan. I don't want you to be afraid. I promise."

Just as they reached the bird, Nagato felt something in him that he hadn't known was tense relax. He breathed deeply, and was relieved. It was over. He sat with Hidan on the clay owl's tail, and found himself almost giddy just from knowing that Hidan was peacefully and normally sleeping.

Yahiko looked back and smiled. He didn't know why, but something felt right all of a sudden. He turned away from the tail and looked forward. Nagato did not need his hand. Nagato's own hands were good enough now.

.

**A/N: A quick biology lesson, as delivered by someone who is telling you what they remember learning 3 years ago:**

**I learned about the connection between red hair and freckles in biology class. Put simply, that connection doesn't exist for any real reason. It's just a coincidental quirk of how chromosomes work. Before your cells divide to form eggs or sperm, both your chromosomes from any given pair swap parts, so the egg or sperm actually has a mix-matched chromosome that isn't exactly identical to any you have in your regular body cells.**

**Red hair and freckles both have highly influential genes on the same chromosome, and those genes are right next to each other. The dividing line between the part that's getting swapped and what's staying in place would have to be really, really precise to fall between them, so these two genes almost never get separated by this process. They stay together, so they get inherited together.**

**What Nagato is talking about is completely different. The overall biology of a person and that person's personality both are so complex, they must have lots of different genes all playing small parts, scattered across the entire genome. Red hair and freckles are physically difficult to separate, and that is the only reason they are found together. Personality and body type are very easy to separate, and they often do get separated, but they have a good reason to be together so they tend to come back together again. Completely different situations.**

**I share Yahiko's opinion about the value of spreading accurate information, so if any of this note is at all inaccurate and could lead to an incorrect understanding, I would not mind if some biologically learned person would tell me. I can revise and reupload any time. As far as I know with my current knowledge, I believe this to be accurate.**


	63. Reconciliation

**A/N: Releasing this one at ridiculously early o'clock because someone decided for some reason that it was a good idea to start their volunteering event at 7. No, I am not aiming to be on time for that, but it still puts pressure on to be earlier than I would usually be, like 8 or 8:30 or so. Posting this should be a good pick-me-up.**

**.**

**Hidan**

Hidan woke up from a deep, dreamless sleep into bright sunlight. As soon as he opened his eyes, he had to squint in pain as his retinas protested. He normally lay down next to his bed with his feet toward the window and his head toward the door, but he was now lying horizontally before the foot of his bed with his face pointed directly at the shining leaves outside. As Hidan rubbed his eyes and sat up, he felt a chill run down his spine. He would never have positioned himself like this. Someone else must have done it. The question was: Who? Who had moved him while he was sleeping?

_What happened last night? _Hidan grimaced at the taste in his mouth. He sometimes woke up with a strange taste in his mouth, a strong and thick flavor that tasted like something which was good when fresh, but had gone horribly stale by the time he tasted it. As far as Hidan could remember, he had always woken up in this condition on a regular basis, and he had never developed any health consequences like might be expected if it was leaking brain fluid or something, so he ignored the odd taste. However, that did not mean he thought of it as normal. He still thought of it as odd, and when combined with waking up in a strange position, the combination put him on high alert.

_I…don't remember. _His alert level went even higher. _I ran off into the forest to cool down and think about how I should fix things with Kakuzu. I thought up a decent-sounding plan, which I still remember - Yes! - and then, I went to go hang out in the Bird Tree and watch the sunset. I did, and then... what? _

Hidan stood up and sat on the edge of the bed. Concentrate as he might, he could not call up any memory beyond watching the tops of the trees do interesting things as the angle of light changed. He'd felt a little drowsy from the coolness of the air and its constant movement, but also from hunger, which his stomach had complained about. Shouldn't his large lunch have lasted longer? Regardless, his stomach was not to be ignored, so… So…what? Hidan didn't remember planning anything for dinner. Yet he was comfortable and not hungry now. Another chill ran down his spine.

He took a deep breath and tried to relax. _Great. Another fuckin' reconstruction job. _This wasn't unusual either, but like the strange taste, he could never get used to it. It was always upsetting. _So I was hungry, but now I'm not. The sun was setting, which happens at a good time for an early dinner. I must've gotten down from the tree, and come back for something to eat. By the time I did that, it would be a normal dinnertime. So I ate, and then went to sleep, all while being whatever it is I am when I don't remember stuff. _

Hidan shivered. He was glad that most of the time, he couldn't actually perceive his missing time. That meant it was just a short, momentary blip, slipped into the middle of an otherwise normal conversation. It was easy to picture himself saying a single sentence, or doing something in a fit of strong emotion, that he did not remember. These longer fugues were a different story. Hidan wondered who and what actually did the things he found done when he woke up from them. Was it just like sleepwalking? Did he just walk around in a bit of a daze, looking mostly normal, doing normal things out of reflex? Did he have glazed eyes from not really being conscious? Did he act as if in a trance, or like he was in a dream?

Or… Was he fully aware? Had he, in fact, gone on to think of dinner? Had he talked to someone, as well as eaten? What had he said? Had he planned anything, or thought of something interesting? If so, what kind of plan or thought was it? Was it something that he wouldn't like when he woke up, or was he just like himself? Was he such a perfect imitation that nobody could tell the difference? Could Hidan's friends have talked to him, and laughed, and felt good, not knowing that he wouldn't remember it? Had he been himself enough to think that he would remember, but then bam! Nope? Stolen?

Hidan shook his head. He couldn't just sit here stewing in questions. The light was too bright; it must already be late morning. He should get up and go out, be with people. And, for all of his conjecturing, the scenario he'd invented didn't even make complete sense. It still didn't answer the question of who had moved him. Hidan had eaten or done other things in a fugue before, but he had _never_ woken up to discover someone else had done something to him while he slept. Had he inexplicably decided to go to sleep in entirely the wrong position, or had someone else moved him? _If it's the first, why would I decide to do that now, after never doing that before? If the second, who and why? And how? _

He shivered. The reflected light seemed cold, and goosebumps rose up and down his arms. Hidan felt a sudden need for clothing, to be covered. He took deep breaths while shoving his arms into the sleeves of his cloak as fast as they would go, trying not to panic. _Did someone do something to me? Is Fugue Me easy to take advantage of? What happened? Am I missing anything? _He checked all of his possessions. _Where's my scythe?! _

Hidan looked in all directions frantically. _Did someone - did I - _There it was. He saw his scythe propped up in a corner. That was also a place he would never have left it, because it belonged on his back. Hidan wondered if he should touch it. There might be fingerprints left on the handle.

This thought was the one to jog him into a more reasonable frame of mind. _Wait. No, I have other people around me now. I'm not alone in the woods anymore. It was probably a friend, taking me back to my room and putting my stuff where they would put it. I don't have to think about all this on my own. I can just ask about what happened. _

His stomach dropped. Hidan wondered why. _That's what I've always wanted, right? Answers and shit? _But now, faced with the idea of getting some, he was scared. If he didn't ask, he could go on picturing himself sleep walking, maybe looking a little dazed. If he didn't ask, he could go on comforting himself with _Well, as far as I can tell, the one thing that's certain is that Fugue Me looks after me. _He could go on believing the best. The idea of having every one of his questions answered made his heart race. It also made him feel a little odd. Hidan found his head turned to the side without any memory of turning it. _Shit! No! I don't want to enter a fugue again!_ Hidan grabbed the handle of the scythe with one hand and some part of his cloak with the other, and squeezed as if he was holding on for dear life. He was. Maybe not for his whole life, but definitely for a part of it.

He still felt very strange, as if he was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. He couldn't get enough air. Hidan's eyes darted around the walls. His room was very small, an excellent little box to go crazy in. He had to escape. Get out! Hidan swung his door open so that it bounced off the wall, and raced out into the hallway. It was a little easier to breathe when he could look down long stretches of tile.

Hidan turned left and ran to the most open room he knew. If it got worse, he could go outside and run very, very far away. But it wasn't that bad yet. The lobby would do. Hidan looked out its huge glass front, the entire street on display. If he moved all the way over to the left, he could just see the part of road that the snake boy had turned into a small forest. The sight reassured him. It was normal. It was not dangerous. It was not going to do anything to him. His breathing slowed.

Hidan relaxed his right hand so its fingers were no longer digging into his left arm, restoring circulation. He leaned against the wall and sighed. _Okay, what the fuck was that? _

No, these fugues were not like the strange taste in his mouth. He couldn't stop thinking of the taste as odd, but he had at least gotten more comfortable with it over time. In contrast, the fugues freaked him out more and more as more hours of his life disappeared. _It's like someone's taking scissors to me. Snip snip. _He blinked away tears.

For some reason, that idea - _Tears_ \- brought Nagato to mind. Hidan remembered that Nagato was awesome, and brave. He was so fucking brave. Hidan gritted his teeth. What the fuck was he doing standing here, when he should be being brave like Nagato? _So fucking what if someone's got scissors? I've got people who saw what happened. I'm gonna get those pieces of me back! _His internal organs twisted alarmingly, but he ignored them. _If I keep freaking out more every time, it won't take a couple of other suspicious details to push me over the edge anymore. I'll be a nervous wreck just from it happening. I've got to figure out what's happening so I can stop myself from being wrecked just because of a few missing hours! _

Sometimes, if he was pushed to, Hidan worried about his state of mind. But Nagato would never worry. He'd say that Hidan was as sane as he needed to be, and he was strong, look how much good he did for everyone, yadda yadda. Nagato was always nice and calm and would say things like that. _I'm not gonna go crazy. I'm not gonna let myself go crazy. I'm gonna get answers! _

_I wish it wasn't late morning so I could tell him…_

It was no fun inspiring oneself alone, nor was it any good to be grateful. Hidan didn't even feel inspired, but somehow more anxious than before he had summoned these thoughts. He hung his head and wondered if something was wrong with him.

Something thumped against the wall nearby. Hidan blinked and remembered where he was. The thump turned out to be Kakuzu, his foot still raised in a kicking position. Kakuzu lowered his foot and studied Hidan more closely. His green eyes saw Hidan's face, his eyes, the way he leaned against the wall, the way the scythe must have been pressing into his back yet Hidan didn't seem to notice. Hidan noticed now and stood up. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at him, rightly suspicious. "Are you alright?"

Hidan swallowed. He was the more active one, wasn't he? The more fun one, the mover and doer. Or he was supposed to be. Hidan couldn't remember being the one to need Kakuzu, aside from that hellish period of a few months that to him had been a week. Those were obviously special circumstances. He did _not_ need help, at least not from Kakuzu. Nagato and Yahiko were obviously special people, so they were different. Kakuzu was a normal part of everyday life, and Hidan didn't need any help in that domain.

_Yeah. Sure I don't. _That was a bitter thought. _I could use someone who knows all about it to talk to… _

Alright, fine. So he needed help with some very weird and very strange and unusual shit. That was okay. Hidan supposed it was only right to let Kakuzu be the one to help him for a change, anyway. Hadn't that been part of what they'd argued about?

"Someone moved me last night," he explained. "That's literally never fucking happened before. I know it was probably someone being helpful, but I've always woken up right where I went to sleep without anyone helping, so what the fuck? I'm not appreciative, and I have that weird taste in my mouth again, _and_ on top of all that I know I lost several hours last night! All of those things fucking suck on their own, so a whole pile of them…" He growled.

Kakuzu looked at him very strangely. "What weird taste?"

_Huh? I must have mentioned it at some point… _Hidan thought quickly. _Didn't I? _"That weird taste I get in my mouth sometimes," he repeated. "Like something old and stale. It doesn't taste good. Glugh." _On second thought, I always wash that shit out as soon as I can. I never have Kakuzu around right when I wake up. _"I always wash it out really quickly." Hidan ran his tongue around his mouth and wondered if it would be good manners to go outside and spit.

Kakuzu approached. "Hmm… Maybe I could smell it." He gestured at Hidan.

_Oh… Fuckin' _duh._ Figuring out what the taste is could help. Why haven't I thought of that? _Hidan opened his mouth and slowly exhaled.

Kakuzu said nothing, but his eyes widened. Hidan felt his major muscles wind up like old-fashioned clocks. "K-Kakuzu?" _What is it?!_

Kakuzu went to great effort to untense himself. "It smells very similar to blood… How often did you say you taste it?"

Hidan's hand went to his mouth. He stuck his fingers in as far as he could without gagging, then withdrew them. They had no traces of red on them. "Blood? What the fuck? Are you fucking sure?"

"Or something very similar," Kakuzu repeated. "Now answer the damn question."

"Um, pretty regularly. At least weekly, but a little closer. Most of a week?" Hidan could not claim to have kept track.

Kakuzu stared, horrified. Hidan shuddered. "So, wait, does that mean I'm bleeding? Like every few days, bleeding, in my mouth? What the fuck? I'm fucking fine! What could cause that anyway?"

Kakuzu blinked. "Odds are it's not your blood."

…_? _Hidan had no idea how to make sense of that. "...What?"

Kakuzu explained, "Like I said, the local vampires have a problem with you. When nobody had seen you for hours last night and you didn't show for the meeting, I wondered if it was safe for you to be who knows where, at night, alone. Those two - you know who I mean, they only ever come together. I should figure out a pair name for them - went to talk to the vampires diplomatically. I have no idea what was said, but on our way back -"

Hidan's heart stopped. His eyes grew wide. "I didn't come back last night?" He let out a rusty squeak. Unconsciously, he grabbed his stomach. _What did I eat?! _

Kakuzu mentally cursed. Of course, how typical of Hidan to put on a brave face. He should have known Hidan wasn't okay just from the fact that he could _see_ Hidan being visibly not okay. It had been foolish not to assume Hidan was really in a much worse state than he appeared. "No, you didn't. Everything's alright, though. Everyone else with a cloak went out looking for you. You don't look harmed, and you said they brought you back. _Everything is fine._"

"No it's not, because I don't know what the fuck is happening!" Hidan blinked away more tears. "Who the fuck is taking scissors to my life and cutting off pieces and shit, Kakuzu? What the fuck did I eat? Why the fuck did I eat it? _Who_ the fuck ate it? Was it me, and I'm apparently a bloodthirsty bunny murderer when I can't feel their pain? Or was it not me, and I'm not - I can't - my - everything - What the fucking _fuckity __**fuck?!**_"

Kakuzu closed his eyes, whispered several more curses to himself, then opened them and lunged. He grabbed Hidan's wildly flailing arms first. "Hey! Let goooo!" He held them still until Hidan stopped struggling and they went slack, then lowered them to Hidan's sides where they should be. Finally, before he could panic any further, Kakuzu grabbed him and wrapped him in a hug.

Hidan kicked a few times, struggling, before suddenly relaxing and going limp. It was like a switch had flipped and turned off all his muscles. Kakuzu continued to hold him, now for the purpose of keeping Hidan from falling to the floor. He wasn't very huggy for no other reason, and Hidan knew it.

"Ka-ku-zu?" _He's done this before. _There was only one other time when Kakuzu had made such extensive physical contact with him. It had been for the same reason, too. _He pressed me to the floor that morning when Sasori's shit was stolen. I was freaking out. Felt like things, ideas, kept whirling in and out of my view and they were all so interesting I couldn't see anything else, like my head was spinning. I was getting dizzy but I didn't care, just wanted to do everything. I was sick. I couldn't think right. I hurt Nagato. _

Hidan raised his hands and pushed on Kakuzu's shoulders. "Kakuzu." The older man did not let go. "Kakuzu, stop it! I'm not going to hurt anyone anymore."

Kakuzu released him. Hidan stumbled backwards into the wall, where the feeling of the scythe pressing into his back helped calm him. _Was I that far out of my mind again just now? _He felt sick. _It's probably not all from being out of my mind. It might be from the blood. _But Hidan could not remember ever feeling sick when he had that strange taste in his mouth. Apparently he digested blood just fine. Hidan reached for the handle of his scythe. It took several tries to grab it since his hands were shaking, but he did, and he removed it from his back and leaned it against the wall next to him. It fell over onto the floor, which he did not prevent because he was too busy slumping on the floor and gripping the sides of his head. He didn't know if it would stop his brains from leaking out, but he had to try. _That time, I was out of it because Konan was. This time, it's all me. Oh for fuck's sake, I'm losing it. _

Kakuzu crouched in front of him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Hidan flinched away from it. "Fuck me," he whispered. "I'm losing everything and I'm hurting and scaring people and they're scared and they're going to go…"

Kakuzu's eyes widened. For the first time, he seriously wondered what those four had said to Hidan last night. Had they said something that was scaring him now? He couldn't imagine Konan ever allowing anyone to say something like this directly, but maybe their body language had given it away. "_Shit. _And you have no memory of what they said to you."

Hidan sniffled. He raised an arm to wipe his nose. _I must look so pathetic. I'm like a mess. How can I do anything for anyone if I'm a mess? What would I even do if I can't do anything for anyone? That's just as bad as if I hurt them. Even worse; I'd be such a huge weight..._

He wiped his nose and cleared his eyes before trying to speak in a steady voice. "That's it, Kakuzu. I don't remember anything. Why?" Hidan's throat squeezed again as he looked up at Kakuzu. "Why me? I haven't done anything, I'm not - I'm not anything special, I…" He swallowed back a sob. "I'm just a guy. So why is everyone so angry that I just fucking exist? Why do I get shit on like this?"

**Kakuzu**

Whatever Kakuzu had been thinking of saying flew out the window. He looked down at Hidan, who had given in to being a mess. In all their life together, since Kakuzu had discovered him decades ago, he had never seen Hidan like this. Hidan was strong. Hidan was a mirror. Hidan was a black hole. Hidan was a strange and half terrifying, half impressive being who swept into people's lives and made them more interesting. And now he was weak, sitting on the floor crying and feeling powerless, claiming to be ordinary.

Kakuzu's first reaction was to search what he could see of Hidan's face for a sign that he was joking. _He cannot be serious. He is not just a guy and he never has been. Everyone can see it. There is no possible way he can believe that. _

Hidan continued scrubbing at his face, trying to piece himself back together and getting frustrated at his continued failure. Kakuzu knew this because all of it showed on Hidan's face. The younger man was really bad at hiding things from other people. _He can't be serious… Can he? _

Kakuzu's second impulse was one he had never experienced before. He had never needed to. Hidan had never needed comfort before. But now he did, and Kakuzu could see plainly that Hidan was not joking. _How could he believe that? _Kakuzu understood how bewildered Hidan must be feeling, because he was bewildered himself. He reached out a hand, slowly, hesitantly.

Hidan gasped when he felt Kakuzu's hand on the side of his head, but did not move away. Hoping to hell he knew what he was doing, Kakuzu proceeded to scratch. Slowly at first, then more confidently, he massaged the area behind Hidan's right ear. Hidan's eyes partially closed as he lowered his head, directing Kakuzu's fingers upward. "M' hair." Kakuzu gently tugged on Hidan's hair with every movement of his fingers, lightly pulling back and forth. Hidan's ears flexed and he started to purr.

Kakuzu did not know how long he kept doing this for. He only knew that by the time Hidan took hold of his wrist and stopped it, he had learned a lot about how to properly pet Hidan but was still far from mastery. If Hidan's smile was anything to go by, he'd learned enough. Kakuzu was glad for that.

Hidan pushed his wrist away and opened his eyes. They were still red and puffy, but his vision was unclouded with tears for the moment. "Thanks." He actually had never considered Kakuzu petting him. It had seemed like something that simply couldn't happen. The whole world must have changed somehow to accommodate this.

Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. _Right. Now to get back to business. _"How the hell can _you_, of all people, possibly believe that you're ordinary?"

Hidan blinked at him, then looked around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him. "Well… I'm a pretty normal guy. I've got issues. I've got friends. I like my friends. I got stuff I like, and I do shit. I like people in general. I've got a handle on the issues, for now." His face wrinkled. "M-maybe not. I dunno."

Kakuzu shook his head. "You're leaving things out." He held up a hand to count on. "Let's see. You can feel other people's feelings. You convince people that shouldn't be convinced, of things they would never in their right mind be convinced of. You come and go as you please, and everything goes right for you. Your ratio of foolishness is one hell of a lot lower than anyone else's. Oh, and that's before we get into the things you don't remember saying always turning out to be mysteriously accurate, somehow. Care to explain that as something an ordinary, normal person can do?"

Hidan shivered. He grimaced as if in pain. "No. I… What, you think me being good to talk to is a sign I'm something bad? Something that vampires and demons should be angry at?" He shook his head frantically. "No, fuck you! Just because you found me on the side of a road doesn't mean you get to interrogate me!"

Kakuzu stared. _He isn't making any sense. _

Hidan continued shaking his head. "I'm not wrong. There is no reason anyone should treat me like I'm some kind of...whatever you implied I was. Fuck off."

Kakuzu tilted his head. _Now _that_ makes sense. He doesn't want to believe there's any reason for people to reject him. _But that invited a question: _Why does he fear that people will then, if he doesn't believe there's a reason to? _

"Why are you afraid that anyone would, then?"

"Fuck you!"

Kakuzu sighed. _He's getting hysterical. Great. _"I reserve a right to believe you aren't ordinary."

Hidan sniffled. Kakuzu added. "Not in the bad way. You're the good kind of not ordinary."

Hidan sniffled again. "Like Moonlight?" he whispered.

Kakuzu thought about Nagato. "No, he's pretty ordinary."

"He is not!" Kakuzu startled backwards at the force of this exclamation. In less time than it took him to blink, Hidan had gone from slumped and relaxed to tense and in Kakuzu's face. He graciously allowed Kakuzu to shift into a stable position, then continued defending Nagato's honor. "He is not ordinary!"

Hidan's eyes filled with tears, but they must have been a different kind because he started smiling through them. "Nagato is… Brave, and awesome, and crazy loyal. He's my best friend." Hidan's face was soon covered with salt water. He ignored it and gestured at Kakuzu. "You, I mean… You're my oldest friend. You always will be. But Nagato won't run away, and he's not mad, and he's got me. He promised." Hidan grinned, even as the flow of tears increased. Kakuzu realized they were happy tears. "He's darn close to the best person I've ever met. He's way braver than anyone else. Not ordinary."

Kakuzu latched onto what he could while he processed the rest. "He promised?"

Hidan was still smiling. "Hm?"

_He demoted me. _Kakuzu was shocked. _He demoted me, because he has other friends now and some of them are closer to him than I am. _What did he feel about that? "You said that Nagato promised he wouldn't leave you."

Hidan blinked and rubbed his chin, where the gatherings of droplets itched. "I did?"

_He doesn't remember? _Kakuzu sat straighter. "Yes. You said that, right in the middle of everything you just told me about him."

Hidan grinned and started to laugh. He bent over, laughing and shaking his head. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. "What's so funny?"

"I like that shit," Hidan answered. "When it's in the middle." He chuckled for a few more seconds, then recovered. "It feels like I haven't lost anything when it's right there in the middle like that."

Kakuzu sighed again. _Ridiculous. As usual. I might never get a handle on him._

Something occurred to Kakuzu just then. There was a way he could make up for his hurtful words. He patted Hidan on the shoulder to get his attention. When Hidan was looking at him, Kakuzu told him, "You haven't lost anything."

Hidan's brow wrinkled. "I haven't?"

"No." Kakuzu smirked, a rare thing. _For once I've beaten him. _"When did Nagato promise you this?"

Hidan looked around the ceiling while he tried to recall. "I don't know. I don't remember him promising it."

"Exactly." _Finally, _I_ get to show _him_ somewhere. _"You lose a few hours, during which Nagato goes to talk to you. Today, you're more convinced than you have ever been that he is your best friend. You're not exactly stingy with affection; if you had thought this before today, I would have seen it. You only believe it _now_, after he talks to you while you're amnesiac."

Hidan's face cleared. Kakuzu was gratified to see him look stunned. "So, you mean… I do remember. I remember something he said to me last night."

Kakuzu nodded. "It's not in a part of your memory you can reach, but it's there, just like whatever happened before you ran away is still there. Some part of you remembered _that_ and that's how you knew to be afraid of me when I started to sound similar. Your memories aren't gone, just moved somewhere else."

Hidan's eyes glazed over. "I remembered some things, leaves and the road, from before…"

Kakuzu nodded. "Yes, you did. There's no need to be afraid. You aren't losing things, and you aren't scaring away people either. You. Are. Fine."

Hidan relaxed, truly relaxed. That made sense. But, more importantly than it making sense, it _felt_ right. It struck Hidan in a way that his earlier attempts to figure things out had not. He tilted his head. "Hey, Kakuzu?"

"Yes?"

Hidan remembered his scythe falling to the floor and looked around for it. "Before you came out here, before I started freaking out," he said while picking it up, "I wasn't thinking of any of that shit." Hidan carefully swung it away from Kakuzu and replaced it on his back, the blades nestling against his shoulders in such a way that, if he tilted his head back, the top of the topmost blade would press into his head just a little. "Everything I said earlier, losing shit, scissors, losing people… That was all smoked herrings. That's not why I freaked out."

Kakuzu dusted off his pants. "Why did you?"

"Just before I kind of panicked and ran out here, what I was actually thinking was that I could ask someone what happened, get answers." Hidan frowned. "The idea made my heart go crazy. I thought I wanted to get answers to what I'm like and why I don't remember, but I was scared as shit when I thought I could."

Kakuzu nodded. "You don't actually want to know."

Hidan nodded back. "I don't think I do. When you said some part of me remembered, I thought, '_That means I don't need to ask._ _I don't need answers._' And, bam. That's when what you said started feeling right."

Kakuzu crossed his arms and stared at Hidan flatly, unimpressed. "You only just realized this? I thought it was obvious all along. You lose your memory of things that upset you, that you can't handle. Of course you don't want to remember them."

Hidan growled. "You think I want to run away like that? You think I want to be scared and shit?"

Kakuzu shook his head. "No, you don't. That is_ why_ you forget. You forget because if you remembered, you would always be afraid. You'd remember whatever made you run away constantly, and you'd always be looking over your shoulder for it. Congratulations; you ran away and got a new start, just like you probably wanted. You get a new start mentally, too. How fortunate. Cherish it."

Hidan stared back with his mouth hanging open. He'd always wondered about his past, tried to reach for it, tried to recreate it in his imagination. He had always thought of it as a thing stolen from him that he needed to reclaim. But perhaps he had deliberately thrown it away, instead? Perhaps it wasn't worth worrying over. Perhaps he ought to think of his future.

He wished he could remember which was the case. But he also wished for Kakuzu to be right, so that he wouldn't have to. It felt so right to not have to worry, to think that he could trust Fugue Hidan to take care of him, as a friend or partner in arms. He wanted to trust himself.

So he did. It was really that simple.

"Hey, Kakuzu." Hidan shuffled from foot to foot. "I thought of what we can do to practice being more considerate and shit. Want to hear it?"

"Sure." Kakuzu pulled over the chair from behind the reception desk and sat. Hidan grinned and began to pace back and forth, gesturing as wildly as he felt like gesturing. He looked down as he talked to check if he was floating.

Kakuzu understood why he checked and was amused. He also felt a lot lighter. _So Hidan isn't a terrifying cosmic force that I am powerless against. Or at least not all of him is. Ahh, it feels good to have some control over these things. _

He listened to Hidan's plan for better relations, and found no obvious faults with it. He realized he needed to thank Konan. She had pushed them apart and made him stay, and here he was, feeling glad he had.

Kakuzu wasn't looking forward to admitting it, though. _I'll save it for a special occasion. _He grinned. This was a time of triumph, and he made sure to enjoy every second of it.

.

**A/N: I am starting to become worried about the frequency of crying breakdowns in my stories. Methinks I might not know any other way of expressing strong emotion.**

**Eh, it's fine.**

**We'll get back to actual activity happening and people doing things next chapter. In the meantime, reading over this chapter before posting has been exactly the pick-me-up I needed. The weather's pretty harsh and cold now. **

**Good luck everyone!**


	64. Eye Of The Hurricane

**A/N: The title of this chapter has put REM's "It's The End Of The World" in my head for the past two days. Thank you!**

**This is the second chapter in this story which I've changed the title of last-minute, btw. The other was The Meaning Of Leadership, which originally had a different and slightly clunkier-sounding title. **

**[big smile emoji]**

**.**

**Deidara**

Deidara's eyes widened. _Giant shuriken! _It was coming right at him. Deidara saw its edge, gleaming (_that isn't possible_), slicing through the air, slicing through him…

He heard a voice, and blinked. The vision of the paper blade's razor-sharp edge slicing cleanly through his nose disappeared. The opposite was true of his heartbeat, which Deidara had not heard before. He heard it now, loud and clear.

Clay, his trusty steed, brought him back down to earth, where Deidara stumbled off his back and leaned against his side, swallowing to moisten his mouth. Deidara wrapped his arms around the bird. He knew Clay was under his control, so the bird could not have brought him down. He had brought himself down. He hugged his clay bird anyway. _If I can't hug my own creation, what can I hug, hm? _

Konan sat on a fallen branch, leaning forward with her chin on top of her folded fingers, watching him. Her head felt clear again, and she noticed easily how Deidara seemed to be quite scared, how he hugged his bird as if seeking comfort, how his hands trembled. She found it very odd. What could this strange behavior mean?

"Deidara," she called. He stopped petting his owl and stepped back, turning to face her. His face was slightly flushed; whether from embarrassment, exertion, or fear, it was impossible to say. Konan unclasped her fingers and stood up. "Why were you hugging your bird just now?"

Deidara glanced back at Clay. "I was thanking him, hm. I _know_ I have control over him, so he didn't really do anything... but it still feels like it wasn't me who landed, it was him, hm."

Konan unmade the paper shuriken she had thrown at him. "And why did you feel the need to thank him for landing?"

Deidara shivered. He glanced back at his bird before trying to describe his experience. "Because I was scared, yeah. When it came at me, it was like time slowed down, yeah. I-I thought it was _gleaming_, like metal, even though paper can't do that. And then… I just froze… I... " He shivered again. Konan observed that his breathing was faster and harder than it had been before he tried to describe it, and his face was more flushed. They should stop.

She walked up and punched him lightly in the shoulder. She wondered how people of this world comforted and reassured each other outside of playful, friendly contexts. Until she learned that, this gesture would have to do.

Deidara blinked. _What - huh? That was weird, yeah. Does that mean it's over? _

Konan retrieved a nearby supply of water and snacks. He relaxed at the sight of them. Clay spread his wings, and the two of them sat down to eat in his shadow. Well, Deidara ate; Konan continued to watch him.

After Deidara finished a single small package of gummy fruit snacks, Konan spoke. "Why were you frightened?"

He stopped chewing. _Why was I? _"I guess…" he began. "I think… It was… the thing coming toward me?" He flipped his ponytail back. "Yeah, I think that was it. I couldn't really look away from the edge of it, yeah. It looked like it was shining, and I thought it was going to cut my nose off, yeah."

"How was this sight different from other sights, as when I threw a spear at you?"

Deidara shook his head. "That's different. It doesn't slice, and it wasn't spinning. I didn't see it the same, hm."

Konan made sure she had a good view of his face before asking, "What if I made a modified shuriken that looked exactly like a piece of shrapnel?"

Deidara winced and froze, as if in pain. She sighed. "As expected."

She wondered about him, and about his original. The clones had roughly similar circumstances as their originals, mostly. Nagato and Yahiko had met and learned from Jiraiya sensei. Hidan had been a young runaway. She didn't know any specific details about Sasori or Kakuzu's life stories, but they viewed other people in a similar way as their originals, suggesting a similar history of interactions.

But here was Deidara. He had experienced warfare, obviously. His original had too, but they had interpreted it in completely separate ways. Original Deidara had a love of war and wished to use the battlefield as a stage to show off on. Clone Deidara was damaged so that any reminder of the battlefield was enough to turn him away from the _thought_ of hurting anyone or anything. Even if they had had similar events happen to them, Deidara and his original had plainly interpreted them differently, which meant that they did not really have the same experience.

Konan had a growing number of questions about how this clone phenomenon worked. Why did they absolutely have to have the same abilities as their originals, to the point of importing a god into a world he didn't belong in? Why were the rules governing their personalities more flexible than that? What were the rules, anyway?

Deidara sighed too. _Crap, yeah. It's about that again? _Was there any part of his life that wasn't broken, that wasn't warped? Was he going to be haunted forever? Could he never escape? "Sorry, hm."

Konan waved a hand. "It does not matter. Are you ready?"

Deidara turned around to glance at her. "Um, yeah, but -" _Why doesn't it matter? _

Konan stood up before he could ask. "Then let's go."

Deidara resolved to ask later, if he didn't figure out what she meant during their training session. He climbed back onto Clay's back, and took off racing through the trees.

Deidara had decided today was a good day to begin that training program he'd thought of, so he had spent a while flying with Clay through the woods. He had a much greater appreciation for the strength of thin branches, or at least the strength they seemed to have when they got tangled in your hair at high speed. His ability to fly low was vastly improved, though he still couldn't fly low enough to dodge everything. He had spent an hour flying slowly as well, simply learning how to turn more quickly. He had a lot of questions now about his hairstyle. Either he had to avoid flying in forests, or his ponytails had to go. Why did he have this hairstyle if his original had been in battle, dodging weapons and things?

That was exactly the point when weapons began flying at him from multiple directions. Dei wasn't ashamed to admit he had crashed into a tree after the first 3. He considered it an achievement to have made it that far. He credited his original with his lack of surprise when the barrage of weapons did not stop. He had hopped into Clay's talons and had the bird carry him up through the branches, until he was in the open air and could return to the owl's back. The whole time, weapons embedded themselves shallowly in the owl's surprisingly durable clay, remaining for only a few seconds before they were torn out by passing branches. Deidara had also not been surprised when smaller weapons appeared in the mix, ones that Clay couldn't shield him from.

Dei didn't actually remember what he had done about those. His memories were a blur of thoughts; the actual battle had been mostly left to his instincts and reflexes. He remembered a strange and pleasant clarity.

He wished for that clarity again, and it came, in the form of a storm of giant needles. Deidara found the time while maneuvering to think about Konan's motives. As Clay reared up and flipped to shield Deidara with one wing, Dei thought, _I wonder why she's helping me today, yeah. _Deidara threw a small spider to blast a giant shuriken out of the way, and leaped off of Clay's back. _We got a pretty good explanation last night, and Hidan was sleeping all the way back. She can't talk to no one else but him, yeah, and I _did_ ask her to help me while Hidan couldn't. _Deidara leaped over a swinging sharp-edged something, landed on the trunk of a tree, and ran up it. _This must be fun for her, yeah. _

It was. It was very fun. Konan found the time to think of how grateful she was that Yahiko and that boy were both taking up the healing arts and applying them to plants, and this thought did not cause her pain.

Deidara rejoined Clay on a high branch of the tree, beginning to breathe heavily. His legs were starting to feel something. It wasn't quite an ache; it was more pleasant than painful, just a deep feeling of warmth. He felt his chakra flow surge. He grinned and took off racing again, zipping along a route he had already raced through, which was now cleared of all the branches and twigs he had hit the first time.

Konan ended the onslaught earlier than he had expected. Deidara landed on the far side of the lake and waited. Most of a minute later, she joined him, breathing heavily. "Oh, right, yeah. You spend a lot more chakra than I do, yeah?" he realized.

She nodded.

Deidara dismounted. "Wanna rest again?"

She accepted his offer, and they sat once more beneath Clay's spread wings. Deidara ran his fingers over the minor marks left by weapons and branches. They looked almost healed. "How'd Hidan cut all the way through, yeah?" he whispered.

"Wind chakra is very powerful," Konan answered. "He was very angry, so he would have used quite a lot of it. Don't piss him off that badly again if you value your life."

Deidara shivered. "I'm not going to, hm." He peered closely at the underside of Clay's wing, failing to see any marks now. "It's just incredible, yeah. Those giant shuriken could cut me in half, and they barely leave a dent in him. If Hidan got mad at _me_ and Clay wasn't around to block it, it might be like - Have you ever seen movies where someone gets cut up, but they look totally intact for a few seconds after because whatever cut them up was _that_ sharp? Like that, yeah. I might not even notice, yeah."

"I have not seen any movies, and I have no wish to." She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through her nose. She had enough on her mind without trying to cram a whole world in there.

Deidara saw that she was going to be resting for some time. He brushed his ponytail out of the way needlessly. "So, about last night, yeah."

She smiled. Of course he would want to ask. She'd been expecting it. "You may ask, but be warned: there are some questions I will not answer."

_That's fine, hm. _"So, hm, does Hidan really need to drink blood like vampires do? And there are other people who need to do that? And you're, um, like that?"

Konan said, "Yes, yes, and not quite." She formed paper claws and showed them to Deidara. "I do not need to drink blood as he does." She looked down at their tips. Their tips curved back, with little jags that would wound even something that managed to escape. The claws were highly efficient killing tools. "But I am dangerous. It was not wrong of Yahiko to ask about me in the same way," she murmured softly. The claws weren't dangerous on their own; they were only tools. But they were tools she hadn't consciously invented, which begged the question: Why did such lethal features wait in her mind, needing only the proper mood to be manifested as parts of her body? If she could be revealed for what she truly was, her body reshaped according to her real nature, what kind of monstrous creature would she look like?

Deidara silently digested that. He swallowed to moisten his suddenly dry throat, and then remembered something that had been said. "Maybe..." he began. "Maybe not in body, but in mind?"

Konan shrugged. That was one of the questions she wasn't going to answer. It was too much like the questions she already asked of herself.

Deidara sighed. "I don't _get it_, though." He shook his head. "The whole reason the vampires are angry is because of Jashin sama, but he's not a Jashinist! They're mad at him for being a Jashinist, and you talk about him like he's the best example of all Jashinists, but he's _not one. _I don't get it, yeah."

Konan dissolved her paper claws. Something tight in her throat relaxed when they were gone. "His original was. You're right - it is not fair for him to have inherited this hatred from his original. He has to take the burden of things he's never done, things he hasn't even _been_. But regardless of how fair it is, that's what he must do."

"This is so weird, yeah," Deidara continued. "What about… I don't know, anyone else? Why do none of us have originals that are so...so…"

"Different from you," Konan finished.

Deidara blinked. "Yeah. Why is he different and we aren't?"

Konan looked sideways at him. "That is not true." She sat up and oriented herself toward him. "Hidan is the only one whose original has been clearly described, who you can hold up for a clear view of the differences. You and the others are different, very much so. However, I don't talk about it, and it doesn't make such a difference in how I interact with you. You don't see it clearly."

Deidara thought about what he did know of his original. _Hmm. If he was the sort of guy who'd blow up whole villages, yeah - _Dei's mouth moistened _\- then he must have been really different from me. He'd say completely different things than I'd say, he'd act different, you couldn't act or speak or even look the same way around him probably. _"You're right, yeah. I've been trying not to think about it."

"Neither have I," Konan whispered.

Deidara guessed now was a good time to be quiet. He guessed correctly.

The water of the lake whispered quietly as a few scraps of wind made it through the trees, making it lap softly on the dirt. Deidara watched a fallen leaf on the ground not far from him which had as many holes as it had leaf material remaining. He remembered something interesting.

"Hey, have you ever thought about nets, hm?"

"Nets?"

"Yeah, hm. They're the only thing where, if you tear them, they actually have _less_ holes than they started with."

Konan tilted her head. "Good point."

Deidara smiled. "I don't remember where I read that, yeah."

They sat in silence. The distant chirping of a bird caught Konan's attention. Her insides did not feel right, listening to it sing so happily. When did a shinobi ever sit and listen so leisurely, without expectation? She had done so a long time ago, back when they still used the building Jiraiya sensei had housed them in. Back then, they had been children playing at being ninja. She bit her lower lip.

A few more minutes passed, and then she could take no more. Without warning, she shot to her feet, lifting Clay's wing above her head as she did so. "I will return," she told a startled Deidara. "Your maneuvering among trees needs work. Continue."

Deidara held his startled position until he couldn't hear her. He listened for anything that could have caused this. The only thing he heard was a bird singing somewhere, and it sounded happy.

**Sasori**

Sasori sat on the reception desk. Laurie sat beside him. He had just finished telling her what Kakuzu had told him. "Which is why I chanced coming here today," he finished.

Laurie looked out the front windows. "Good day to chance that."

There was nothing special for her to be looking at. Nothing was outside. She did not have a shinobi's sense for significant events happening. Yet, they both felt that today was different. It was quiet. Too quiet. They sat in tense silence, waiting for something.

Sasori's cellphone rang. He realized he had been waiting for it to. _I really need to ask her more about how this works. I'm not used to being psychic. _"Hello?"

"Hello." Itachi's voice was forcibly calm. "May I ask what I am looking at?"

"That depends. What are you looking at?"

"A car that appears to have crashed itself on a pile of bicycles."

Sasori's eyes widened. His gut complained as if it had been punched. "Oh no, they didn't…"

He heard sounds on Itachi's end. After a few minutes, Itachi said, "I missed the accident, but someone at the scene says the man inside was not fatally wounded. He was middle-aged, with mostly brown hair and scars on his left hand. He's in the hospital. All I am looking at is the wreckage, which nobody can untangle."

Sasori turned on speakerphone and put it on the desk between himself and Laurie. "Itachi, I have no idea how to explain what happened. I have no idea how they found out about my boss. I didn't even ask for this. I did not organize this in any way. I swear that all I did was leave the ones I fixed over the weekend by the entrance to the park. I didn't…" He put his face in his hands. _Oh my god. A car plowing into a crowd of small, fragile… _"Itachi, what kind of car was it?"

"I know little about cars," Itachi apologized. "It's just one of the regular cars that anyone may drive. It is a larger model, one you would see families with."

Sasori whimpered. _Oh god. _"I…" _Did I cause this? _

Laurie glanced between him and the phone. What should she do? What could she do? What was wrong? "Um, does this have something to do with bicycles?" she asked.

"I am looking at a car run aground on a reef of bicycles right now," Itachi summarized. "Do you two know a middle-aged man with brownish hair and scars on his left hand?"

She gasped. "That's our boss!"

"How are they?" Sasori asked. He couldn't quite keep the distress out of his voice. "The bicycles? How are they?"

Itachi sighed. "If I was someone else, I would be expressing extreme levels of disbelief right now. 'What the fuck' or similar sayings might be appropriate. Perhaps 'What the hell is going on.' Hmm… No, that wouldn't do. All I can really imagine using is 'What the fuck,'" Itachi mused aloud while doing something. "They are very tangled together. This is probably why they're in such good condition. I see crushed handlebars and bent wheels. Would you mind telling me why you asked?"

Sasori tried to, but found that he was too emotional to speak. _Why would they do this for me? Is it even for me? Hidan said they don't really feel, so it must just be because I can do things… _But he couldn't believe that. He shook his head at Laurie.

"Sorry," she murmured at the phone. "He can't talk right now."

Itachi sighed again, verging into a groan. "I believe my day is over. Goodbye." He ended the call.

Sasori tried to take a deep breath, found he couldn't, and settled for trying not to sob. "So many…" he whispered.

Laurie patted him on the shoulder. "You're worried about them."

Sasori nodded. "I need to go look. To be there." He stood, holding himself up on the desk until the wobbling stopped. "You can come, if you want."

Laurie did want. Together, they went out to the back lot where Sasori parked his motorcycle. He geared up, waited until Laurie was sitting securely with her hands wrapped around his abdomen, then turned on the engine. The motorcycle came to life with a low rumble. Sasori looked down at it. It was built for sturdiness and reliability, with wide wheels and a thick frame. The handlebars and seat were black, and the frame a dark red. It reminded him of a horse. He leaned down over the bars. "If there was any planning put into this, and you know about it, take me there," he ordered.

Sasori saw and felt nothing unusual during his ride. The only thing that struck him was how smooth it was. He felt and leaned into subtle dips, taking turns as smoothly as if he was on a flying steed. _Is this how Deidara feels? _The turns were random, and Sasori had trouble believing he would get anywhere, but at least he was going to enjoy the ride.

He enjoyed it a lot less when the motorized bike slowed to a stop in front of a horrible scene. Sasori paled, and his stomach made unhappy movements. "Oh god," he said yet again as he hopped off the bike without turning it off. "Oh, no."

Laurie fiddled with the handlebars as she had seen him do, but without the benefit of looking at them. She, too, could only stare. She fumbled more and more frantically without looking away until she finally made it turn off. Then she joined Sasori in staring at the carnage.

Bicycles surrounded the car on three sides. Some had been thrown all the way to the side of the road, minus a tire or seat, and those were the lucky ones. Sasori couldn't get a good look at how many frames were trapped underneath the large vehicle's heavy tires, but he was sure he saw some broken parts scattered beneath its body. In front of the car, thin frames bent around strong ones. Thick mountain-bike tires had left dirt marks on clean bells. Chains broke and wrapped around other chains, and the whole assemblage was ready to shed leather and fabric scraps at the lightest touch. Sasori heard the metal and plastic screeching in his mind.

He told Laurie, "Look," when she joined him. His eyes roved over the pile. He knew what he was looking for, even if he couldn't concentrate well enough to think about it coherently. He hoped he wouldn't find it.

He found it.

He took Laurie's hand and pointed. "There's… There's the one...with the broken chain." He didn't see any white streamers or tricycle parts in the mix, thank the gods.

Laurie raised her hand and pointed. "Is that a kid's bike?" It was.

_They don't grow up, _Sasori rationalized. _They can't. It's just like any other bike here. _But he couldn't stop his stupid biased human brain from sending bad signals to his intestines, so he was forced to turn away. Breathing heavily, Sasori returned to his motorcycle.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus. He failed. Only one thought made it through his spinning head, and Sasori did not have enough focus left to recognize it as a bad one. He reached for his phone and selected a number from his contacts without really being aware of it. "Get over here," he distantly heard himself mumble. He then heard himself give the name of the street he was on. _How can anyone be that calm and collected? _he wondered. _Whoever that is saying that must be a very brave person. Or a nutball. _

Laurie did not say anything, but only remained silent, looking over the twisted wreckage and glancing at Sasori sometimes. Condolences or any kind of reassurance would be insulting in this situation. The only right thing to do was lend dignity to the scene by seeing it and not turning away. So she did not turn away.

Time passed like that before another large, heavy vehicle arrived at the scene. Sasori looked up frantically, his heart in his throat, but saw it slowing to a stop. It stopped at a very respectable distance, and Hidan and Kakuzu got out.

Kakuzu nearly carried Hidan to them, as Hidan seemed incapable of even holding himself up. He was wincing continuously by the time Sasori could talk to him. "What the hell happened here?" Kakuzu demanded.

"Why?" Sasori asked at almost the same moment. "Why did this happen?"

Laurie looked around, lost for something to do. Kakuzu searched for someone to glare at. Hidan winced and snapped, "No fucking clue! Fuck! Fuck, I feel like everything in my entire fucking body is fucking shattered, and it _doesn't fucking hurt._ Shit! Why doesn't it?! Driving me up the fucking wall!"

"But do you feel anything else?" Sasori pressed. "Anything motivating? A reason why?"

"No!" Hidan growled. "I might be missing it 'cause I'm irritated as fuck, but I'm not getting squat."

Sasori couldn't believe that. _No. That can't be true. _He glanced at some of the bikes thrown to the side. _It can't happen like that. Nothing can motivate anyone to do something like this, except for some very great feeling. _"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Hidan gathered the courage to flex his arm, and cried out in outrage at the lack of pain resulting from this action. "Gah! Seriou-fucking-sly, what the fuck?!"

Sasori shook his head. _W-wait… He doesn't feel pain. No pain. No fear. Is it really such a big deal when there's no fear or pain? _He still couldn't believe it. He could know that they felt no pain as much as he wanted, but he was never going to believe it. His stupid biased human brain simply wouldn't accept a vision of being crashed into and broken that did not include pain and fear. Sasori put a hand over his eyes and breathed fast and hard. _C-calm down. Calm down. Think straight. Think! __**Think!**_

He looked at the pile. _Don't think of them. Think of the car. _He looked it over, noticing what make it was, its color, what damage it had taken. _The car._ It still had bikes trapped beneath its thick tires.

"Kakuzu." _I can think. Oh, thank somebody, I can think. _"I'm actually really glad you're here," Sasori said. He hadn't thought of this before; it was just lucky accident that Kakuzu happened to be with Hidan when Sasori called. _What would Hidan have done if he'd gotten here alone? He can hardly even move. That was a stupid decision to call him here. _

Kakuzu had long since settled on glaring at Sasori. "Why?' he growled.

"Because you're the only one who can get that car off of them," Sasori told him. "Use your tentacles and pull it back. I'll try to pull anything beneath it out of the way."

Kakuzu glared harder. "Only if you promise me an explanation."

Sasori sighed. "Yeah, it's time I promised everyone an explanation. You, Itachi… Everyone." _I haven't said anything to anyone except for Hidan. Why? _But of course Sasori didn't have time to ponder his personal issues at this time.

Kakuzu accepted this and went to work, channeling chakra into the stitches on his left arm. He still shivered at the sight of them wriggling around, but he was getting better at hiding it. The idea of doing this in front of so many people made his stomach turn over, but he told himself to stop being such a wuss. He made about half of the stitches on his forearm unravel, making a large enough gap for larger, thicker threads to emerge. He wasn't willing to unravel any more stitches than that. Would his forearm just come off? What about his bones? Did he have bones in there? He couldn't remember if he had ever been X-rayed.

These questions were horribly uncomfortable. Kakuzu decided to ignore them and focus on his threads. He wrapped a band of them beneath the front bumper, another two over the front and top of the vehicle, and another, thinner band behind it for stability.

Meanwhile, Sasori was flicking his fingers out and rescuing severed parts from underneath. Then, he turned to Kakuzu and lifted his hand, palm up. Kakuzu nodded and lifted the front bumper, making sure to keep the vehicle from sliding backward.

Laurie, determined to be of _some_ use, stepped forward and began to delicately tug apart handlebars and spokes. Sasori did the same for the formerly trapped bicycles before lifting them into the air and setting them down gently at the side of the road. Torn scraps from handlebar wrappings and seat covers littered the ground. Kakuzu allowed the car to roll backward, slowly, until he could set it down without crushing anything.

With the car out of the way, Sasori joined Laurie in attempting to unravel the tangled bikes at the center of the wreck. She was no longer making any headway, and after trying every bicycle he could reach, neither did he. Sasori determined that the only thing to do would involve taking the bicycles apart.

_Better to do it in a controlled, purposeful way than to go at them with a blowtorch at random, _he consoled himself. "I need to go back," he told Laurie and Kakuzu. "These things need disassembling."

Hidan groaned loudly and frustratedly. Kakuzu had lain him down on his back next to the motorcycle. He had to admit the warm pavement was warm and therefore nice, but the unshakeable conviction that his body was shattered to pieces was still pissing him off and the flat surface did not help. "And what about me?"

"It's the same place, so I'll take you," Sasori offered. "Laurie, see what you can do for the ones I got free. What condition are they in? That sort of thing."

He got on his motorcycle, and Kakuzu helped load Hidan onto the seat behind him. Hidan refused to have his arms positioned for him and wrapped them around Sasori's abdomen himself. "I'm not useless," he griped. "If he felt it he'd know. It's really that strong. I'm not some wimp! If it hurt, I'd be _more_ able to move, but it doesn't fucking hurt! Feels like I might only be _about_ to be in massive pain any second now, and that's a shit ton worse. It's a stupid fucking brain trick! Assholes."

Sasori sighed and tried not to move. "Yep, illusions sure are a pain." He made sure to give his motorcycle an appreciative pat on the center of the handlebars before starting the engine. He hadn't known where the accident was, yet he'd made it, and it was safer to be more thankful than less. _If it was just luck, gratitude won't hurt, and nobody's going to laugh at me in these circumstances. _

Hidan whimpered in greatest unhappiness as they drove off. "I haven't caught _shit_ the whole time I've been here, except for the mind trick. What was I even called for?"

.

**A/N: I did _not_ plan for this. Oh, crud. I need to figure out exactly what these things are up to, and fast. **

**Sorry, Hidan! **

**Oh, man. Oh no. Sweet mother of cheeses.**

**Anyway, I haven't done a single sentence for next chapter. Let's hope there's no more surprises.**


End file.
